Turn My World Around
by Montana-Rosalie
Summary: Another curse hits and takes Emma to a new, horrible land. Hook can't let her face it alone.
1. Déjà Vu

**Here I go again with another long fic! **The story takes place a few weeks after Emma and Gold get back from their road trip (Neal is not Bae and Belle remembers Gold); Cora and Regina threaten to unleash another curse on the citizens of Storybrooke if Emma doesn't give Henry back, but Emma knows Regina's bluffing; so she refuses. Unfortunately, Cora goes through with the curse, and Regina can't stop her, but she tells Emma and "the two idiots" about it, and that's where our story starts. As for Emma and Hook, they've spent those few weeks since Emma's been back dancing around each other, but no feelings have been admitted to yet, on either side.** So far I've got five chapters written and most of the story planned, so I'm gonna be posting new chapter every three days until I write everything, then we're back to every other day; the same way CBTM was posted. I hope you'll like this one, and tell me what you think.  
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* * *

Storybrooke is in chaos. David and Mary Margaret are trying to establish order, to point the scared people in the right direction, but nobody seems to listen. Since they learned about the new curse Cora is about to unleash on them, they can't seem to stop long enough to listen to reason. If she's perfectly honest, Emma isn't really surprised. After all they've been through, after finally finding a fragile balance between their two lives, it must be horrible to learn that everything is about to be taken away again, one way or the other.

The worst thing is, no one knows what this curse will do, and the only protection is going across the town line, which means losing their memories for those who came to Storybrooke after the first curse, and total amnesia for those who hadn't. Emma glances at Hook and pulls Henry closer to her side.

"Miss Swan, there you are ", Gold calls from across the street, and Hook's hand goes to his sword. It's been a few weeks since they've come to a reluctant truce, but she knows better than anyone that old habits die hard.

"Do you have it?" Emma asks, and Gold nods, pulling out a bottle with purple mist swirling in the middle of it.

"It's ready. We pour this on the town line and all the couples who go across it will keep their memories." He smiles at Belle, but her smile is reluctant.

"Are you sure nothing can be done for those who are alone?" She asks him, and Gold shakes his head.

"You know I wouldn't even be able to do this without Regina's help. We're lucky she decided to turn against her mother at the last possible moment. And besides, we're running out of time; the curse is almost upon us, although…" he trails off, looking at Emma.

She frowns, stepping closer to Gold. "Is there a way to stop it?"

"Not exactly."

"Then what exactly?" Hook cuts in, coming to her side. She deliberately avoids looking at him, keeping her eyes on Gold.

"There might be something beneath the library", Gold says, and Emma rises her eyebrows at him.

"And you only thought of telling me now. Why?"

"Because chances are pretty slim you're going to succeed and come back in time for me to use it."

"What if we all go?" David asks, coming to stand on Emma's other side.

"Sorry, prince, this is a job for our Savior, and no one else", Gold says, tilting his head to the side. "If you're interested, miss Swan."

"What do I have to do?" Emma asks him, knowing that whatever it is, she's the only chance they've got.

* * *

There are more people at the town line than Hook has ever seen in town. They're walking over it in pairs and groups, some coming across safely like Ruby and doctor Whale, some forgetting their fairytale selves like Granny and doctor Hopper. Mary Margaret and David are standing on either side of Henry, glancing back toward town, already safe on the other side of the line.

"Something's wrong", Mary Margaret says, gripping Henry's shoulders. David is about to go back over the line when Gold's voice stops him.

"The spell works only one way. If you go back now, you're going to lose your memories again." Gold says, hugging Belle and leading her away, toward their car and outside world. David fumes, stalking after them.

Mary Margaret looks across the line at Hook, and she doesn't have to say anything; her fear and desperation are quite clear in her eyes.

"I'll go back", Hook says, and turns toward town.

"Killian, wait", Henry calls and shakes off Mary Margaret, catching up to Hook and pulling a walkie-talkie out of his bag. "Do you remember how this works?"

"I do," Hook says, taking it from him.

"Good. Mum's got the other, so you can talk to her as soon as you get close to the library. Or sooner, if she's already on her way here", Henry says, and Hook nods awkwardly, not sure what to tell him. He never was much for empty promises, and Henry's looking at him like he's some kind of a hero, making him slightly uncomfortable.

Hook turns around and starts running back into town, feeling Henry's eyes on himself until he's out of sight.

* * *

Emma goes back into the elevator feeling disappointed, annoyed, and scared. She had already wasted too much time, and she's not certain if she can outrun the curse, not to mention the fact that she's got nothing to show for her effort.

When she's ten feet away from the ground floor the elevator shakes and stops, and Emma stumbles, gripping the wall for support. The sense of déjà vu comes over her and dread fills her gut, because this situation is exactly the same as last year, only this time, it isn't Henry's life on the line; it's everybody else's.

She climbs on top of the elevator car and then the door on the library level slams shut, cutting off her way of escape. Her eyes go wide and that fear she had pushed aside earlier comes back full force.

Then she hears Hook calling her name upstairs and her knees go weak with relief. She doesn't know why he's here, but at the moment she doesn't care; he came back for her, and it's the only thing that matters.

"Down here!" Emma yells, looking up and waiting for the door to open. Judging from the sounds coming from his side, Hook's trying to break it down, but it proves impossible.

"There's a lever somewhere", Emma yells up at him, exasperated. Her walkie-talkie crackles and she pulls it out of her pocket.

"The bloody lever doesn't work", Hook's voice comes out of it, and Emma closes her eyes, all the fight going out of her. Instinctively, she knows it's too late. Up above her head, the noise grows louder, and she wonders if he's actually throwing himself against the door in hope of breaking through.

"You should go while you still can", Emma says into the walkie, sitting down against the rough wall, her legs dangling into the elevator. When she looks up she can see the door, with only a thin ray of light coming through it. She winces every time he bangs against the door.

"Go where? I'd forget everything if I crossed that line", Hook answers her, and the noise finally stops. "I can't open the door", he says, and she has never heard him sound so defeated.

"Then go. It's better to live without memories than stay for the curse", Emma tells him, everything in her screaming for him to stay with her. She doesn't want to face whatever is coming alone, but at the same time she doesn't want him to face it at all. "You can still start over even without the memories."

"I'm not going anywhere", Hook says, and it sounds like he's settling down on the other side of the elevator door.

"We don't know what this curse will do", Emma yells at him, cursing him for being so stubborn and loving him for staying. "We are probably going to die, but it could be worse."

"Worse than forgetting you?" He asks her, and Emma stares at the walkie, wondering if she's imagining things.

"This is not the time for your stupid innuendos", she tells him softly, and he chuckles.

"Oh Emma. You're going to deny that we have something until the bitter end, aren't you?"

Emma closes her eyes and wishes he were next to her, wishes she could make up for lost time and kiss him at least once before the curse hits and does who knows what to them.

"If you forget me, you won't know you've forgotten me", she says softly, the thought of him dying making her sick to her stomach.

"There's nothing you can say that will make me leave you here alone", he says, and she explodes.

"Knowing Cora, this curse is probably going to be worse than simply dying. It could maim us or trap up in perpetual limbo, or transport us to a horrible world where we will pray for death. Why would you risk that for me?!"

"Because if we live, and it is as horrible as you say, I don't want you to face it alone, just like I don't want to face the world outside this town alone." His voice is so soft Emma has to bring the walkie to her ear, and at that moment she regrets always shooting him down, pretending that she doesn't care about him. The truth is, she's too scared of her feelings to acknowledge them, and now it's too late.

Emma takes a deep breath and tells him the only thing that can drive him away.

"If we live, I don't want to be stuck with you forever. I don't know why you came for me, but I don't want you here. Now or ever", she adds for good measure, her voice strong and full of disgust she feels for herself, but hopes he's going to think is aimed at him.

"Tough luck. I'm staying right here."

"Just go, please!" She says, realizing she's crying only when her voice breaks, hating him for making her feel so conflicted, desperate for him to go and save himself and so very grateful for his presence at the same time. Then she thinks about Henry, thinks how she's never going to see her son again, and the tears come faster.

"Now would be the time to stop lying and embrace your feelings for me, lass", Hook says, his voice strangely subdued. Emma realizes that their time is running out, that he probably sees something but doesn't want to scare her and tell her what's going on.

"I want you to be safe", she tells him, abandoning all pretense and closing her eyes, picturing him in her head the way he was just hours ago, wearing jeans and a T-shirt under a leather jacket, his blue eyes wordlessly warning her not to trust Gold.

"It's too late for that, love", he says. "The curse is here."

Emma closes her eyes and hopes it will be over quickly, wishing she could hold onto his hand and face whatever comes feeling his warmth next to her, but above all, wishing she could go with his kiss still on her lips.

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	2. A Whole New World

**I just want to say thank you for all the reviews and follows you gave me after the first chapter, and I hope this one doesn't dissapint. On with the story!  
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* * *

Emma wakes up in the middle of the street, the sky above her grey and gloomy, and it's looking like it's going to rain. She sits up reluctantly, expecting pain to slice through her any second now, but it doesn't. When she finally looks around she gasps, quickly jumping to her feet and turning in a circle to keep an eye on her surroundings.

There's blood everywhere she looks, and what looks a lot like body parts. The buildings around her are badly damaged, and cars are piled 30 feet up and three cars thick on one end of the street. Still, wherever she is, and whatever has happened here, the curse hasn't killed her, and Emma is glad for that.

"Emma", Hook's voice comes from the other side of the wall of cars and she jogs toward it, looking for a way to go through without being crushed to death. She feels exposed here and just wants to get to his side so that he can watch her back. "Swan!" He yells louder, and Emma glances around, unease filling her. Something about this scene is very familiar, but she can't put her finger on it.

"I'm here, stop drawing attention to us", she calls, and sees a line of cars without any doors on the right hand side, two cars above her head.

"Where are we?" Hook asks, his voice moving away, and Emma pushes at the wall of cars, trying to test its stability before she starts climbing. It doesn't move at all, but she's still reluctant because it would really suck to survive the curse and then die crushed beneath a mountain of cars.

"I don't know", she calls, and his footsteps come back. There's a scuffling sound from his side which probably means that he's climbing up, his hook scratching the metal of the cars. She's about to tell him to stay put when another sound comes from behind her, a sort of growl that freezes her in place because even though it sounds like an animal, she knows it's not even before she slowly turns her head and looks.

Three people are coming toward the car wall from a little park across the way from the buildings, and as soon as she sees the way they stumble, the way they move toward her with single-minded intent, she realizes what's happening.

It doesn't matter which city this is, or even which world. She's seen enough horror movies to know what this is; they are in the middle of a zombie outbreak, and her sword is still in the elevator back in Storybrooke. More zombies are gathering, spilling out of a side alley, dragging their feet, covered in blood, some of them missing limbs, all of them relentlessly focused on her. Cora's zombies from the Enchanted Forest were as scary as puppies compared to these nightmares, because they had weapons and they had only wanted to kill her; it's horrible to know that somebody wants to rip you apart and then eat you.

"Emma? What's that sound?" Hook calls, his voice carrying through the cars, and Emma turns her back on the nightmare behind her, stepping on the open window of the lowest car and standing up, precariously balanced against the cold metal. She's about to pull herself up when one of the zombies lunges and grabs her leg, appearing almost out of nowhere, because the last time she had checked, they were all too far away. Panic flows through her, almost making her lose her grip, and she kicks wildly, her foot connecting with zombie's head. After that, she moves on auto-pilot, reaching the car she was aiming for in a daze. She's breathless from her climb and more afraid than she'd ever been in her life, and the only thing that stops her from completely losing it is the knowledge that Hook is on the other side of the wall. Rationally, it doesn't make any sense at all, because if this is as bad as she thinks it is, if this city is overrun, Hook and his sword won't be much help, but she doesn't care. He's everything she's got and it beats being alone.

Emma scoots over the car seat and crawls into the next car, and the next, and by the time she looks out on his side he's one car below her. Their eyes meet and the cocky smile he's giving her turns into a frown, and she doesn't waste time with explanations.

"Go", she tells him and they start their descent, the growls on the other side becoming louder and more persistent, accompanied with the sound of bodies trying to walk through solid objects. Emma thanks God that zombies can't seem to climb and picks up her pace, drawing parallel to Hook, their eyes meeting and holding. She's reminded of the beanstalk, and even though a lot has changed since then, he can still read her like a book.

"Emma, just breathe", he tells her, and she nods, but she's still motionless, looking at the bloody handprint on her boot, her knuckles turning white from her death grip on the car window. She focuses on him because is she looks behind her and sees those things gathering on this side too, she might start screaming and never stop. It's so unfair that the curse dropped them here, where they're never going to be safe, but then again, that was probably the point.

"What scared you so badly, love?" He asks her softly, and she can't stand how worried he looks. She's supposed to be fearless and fierce, but right now she feels about five years old, scared of the monster under the bed. Except this time, the monster is very real, and it wants to take her apart and feast on her brains.

"I can't talk about that until we find somewhere to hide", Emma tells him and starts moving, the thought of being stuck up here until she starves with zombies surrounding her making her pick up her pace.

"Hide? Since when do you hide?"

"The curse dropped us in the middle of a zombie apocalypse, Hook. Your yelling brought a bunch of them here, and the longer we stick around, the greater the chance of us dying in a pool of our own blood", she tells him, her voice rising with panic.

For once, he doesn't have a witty comeback, and Emma is grateful. She's quicker than him and reaches the ground first, trying to look everywhere at once. So far, this side is clear, and the second Hook comes down she grabs his hand and pulls him in the direction of a side street. He doesn't ask her anything else and she looks up, searching for a fire exit low enough to reach. There's one at the very end of the street, and they push a dumpster under it and climb up.

When they get to the first landing, Emma's legs turn to jell-o and she drops down like a marionette whose strings got cut, her head spinning.

Hook sits down next to her, the space so crowded that their thighs are touching, but Emma welcomes the closeness.

"It's going to be alright", he tells her, and Emma turns her head to find him looking at her, and for the first time since that day they climbed the beanstalk, his eyes aren't dancing with humor. It should scare her further, but instead, it's comforting because it's good that he understands the gravity of their situation and still believes that he can fix it.

"I don't think so", she says, resting her head against her knees and closing her eyes, wishing she could fall asleep and never wake up again. She is a world away from Storybrooke, from Henry and her parents, surrounded with zombies, and without any weapons, food or supplies. This world looks like her own, which means there's no magic in it, no portals, no hope of ever finding her way back.

A tear rolls down her cheek and she bites the inside of her mouth to keep from sobbing out loud, feeling stupid because she knows Hook wouldn't hold it against her if she did, but her pride it the last thing she's got left and it would be pathetic if she started bawling within an hour of getting here.

"Lass, come on. Don't fall apart on me now", he tells her, gently nudging her arm with his hook, and she opens her eyes, wiping her face against her jeans before she raises her head.

"I'm fine", she says firmly, standing up and moving past him and up the stairs. He follows her until they reach the roof of the building and look out over the city.

There are fires burning all over town, a lot of buildings just a heap of rubble, a lot of walls of cars stretching in front of them, the pale sun peeking between the clouds and painting everything bloody red as it goes down. She can make out figures stumbling around a little courtyard a few blocks over, more of them moving aimlessly down the main street. It makes her shiver because they could just as well be coming right toward them, closer every minute.

"We should stay here tonight, and go look for food and weapons tomorrow", he says, reading her mind. She glances around the roof and doesn't see a door leading into the building, which means they're relatively safe, because thankfully, the fire escape is too high to be reached from the ground.

"What about water?" She asks him, and he narrows his eyes and glances up at the sky before responding.

"It's going to rain tonight, so we gather it in those buckets over there", he says, pointing with his sword. "Unless you want to go explore the apartments downstairs?"

"No way. Not tonight", Emma says quickly, turning her back on the view and sliding down the guard wall until she's sitting with her back against it. She watches Hook arrange the buckets and finds a chocolate bar in the pocket of her jacket. It's melted on one side, but it's still food, and even though she's incredibly hungry, she waits until he comes back and offers him half of it.

"I'm fine", he says, sitting down next to her just as the first drop of rain lands on her hand.

"Don't tell me: you're always a gentleman", Emma says, rolling her eyes and biting into the bar.

Hook gives her a half smile and shrugs out of his jacket, holding it up above their heads as the rain starts to come down hard.

"Too right, lass", he says, and Emma sticks the last bit of chocolate into his mouth, giving him her most sarcastic smile.

If they're going to survive this, she can't let him be a gentleman, can't let her feelings develop any further. She needs to keep her head in the game and survive.

* * *

The rain stops after just a couple of hours and Emma can't remember ever tasting anything as good as that rainwater. Since the only container they have is Hook's flask, he pours out the rum and fills it with the rest of the rainwater. It's not much, but hopefully they will be able to find water tomorrow.

They settle down to sleep on the side of the roof opposite from the stairs, just in case, and use Hook's jacket as a pillow. Emma lies down next to him and looks up at the starry sky, for the first time seeing it in all its glory, without any city lights to outshine the stars. She wonders if this entire world is infected, or if they just have to leave the city and find civilization again.

"This curse is basically the same as the last one, except this time we remember who we were. Isn't that strange? I mean, why would Cora bring us here and leave our memories intact?" Emma asks him, trying to make some sense of what has happened.

"Because during the first curse, that's what hurt everybody the most. Now, in this world, remembering would hurt worse than not knowing", Hook says softly, and Emma turns her head to look at him. He's looking at the sky, his arms crossed on his chest. She notices that his hook and sword are set to the side, within easy reach, but not close enough for anybody to get hurt accidentally.

"What do you mean?"

"Imagine everybody coming here with us. All those people who care about each other stuck in this world, where it's more likely they'd get torn apart than live to see another day. If nobody knew who they were, they would be horrified if they witnessed something like that, but if they knew, it would be the worst pain you imaginable. Seeing someone you love die and being powerless to stop it isn't something I'd wish on anyone… well, except Rumplestiltskin."

Everything he has just said makes perfect sense, and she's chilled with the realization that it almost was that way, that her parents and Henry could've been stuck here with her.

Hook glances at her and gives her one of those smiles that should be illegal, and she would never in a million years admit that it's hard for her to concentrate on what's he saying when he's like that.

"Don't worry Emma, I'll keep you safe", he says and closes his eyes, a half-smirk still pulling at his lips.

"How do you intent to do that if you're asleep?" Emma asks him, and he cracks open one eye and raises his eyebrow at her.

"I'm a pirate, lass. It would take something more stealthy than those things to sneak up on me", he says and within minutes he's softly snoring.

Emma shifts on her side and watches his chest rise and fall evenly, her eyes tracing up and over his profile, knowing that tonight she won't be able to sleep, not surrounded with zombies who are out to get her. She wraps her jacket tighter around herself, but it's not the cold of the night that's making her shiver, it's the fear, it's dread filling her at the thought of facing this broken world tomorrow.

She's so glad Hook hadn't listened to her when she had told him to go, because despite her trying to pretend otherwise, having him here means the world to her.

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	3. Stuck

**Happy Valentine's Day my dearest readers! Most of you were surprised with zombies, but luckily it seems it was a good kind of surprise. Thanks for reading and reviewing, and enjoy the new chapter.**

* * *

Emma finally falls asleep as the first light of dawn lights up the sky. It's not a deep restful sleep, more of a nap that only makes her groggy when she wakes up to Hook shaking her.

"C'mon, lass", he whispers, kneeling beside her and looking down at her with a worried expression. She sits up and ignores his offered hand, glancing over his shoulder toward the fire escape, half expecting zombies pouring onto the roof. The silence is eerie, and she looks at Hook questioningly, because he must've had a reason to wake her up so abruptly.

"We seem to have found ourselves in a bit of a pickle", he tells her, and goes to the edge of the roof, looking down. Emma comes to his side and follows his gaze, pulling them both away when she sees the alley below.

It's jam packed with zombies. They shamble around aimlessly, but there's no doubt that they would immediately notice them coming down the fire escape, and it wouldn't end good.

"We need to go down some other way", Emma says, and Hook shakes his head.

"I'm afraid we're surrounded on all sides", he tells her, making a circle in the air with his index finger. Emma walks around the roof, and everywhere she looks down, there are zombies. There are probably about two hundred of them around the building, and they're pretty close to it, so making a run for it trying to avoid getting bitten would be suicide.

While she's pacing back and forth, her heart hammering in her chest at the thought of being stuck like this, Hook's leaning against the guard wall with his arms crossed in front of his chest, seemingly without a trouble in the world.

"You have an idea", Emma says, walking closer to him, trying not to think about dying of starvation, or if she prefers that to being ripped apart. A part of her still can't believe that this is really happening; she keeps expecting to wake up, go to work and have Hook annoy the hell out of her until it's time to go home. Okay, this is kind of like that, minus her family and plus a really nasty apocalypse.

"Whatever makes you think that?" He teases, pushing away from the wall and walking toward the opposite side of the roof.

"Cut the crap", Emma snaps, following him, fighting the urge to hit him upside the head. She feels rattled, and it's not helping that he doesn't seem one bit afraid or worried, because it means he's not aware of the gravity of their situation. It's either that or he's braver than she had thought he was, and in this situation, brave equals stupid.

"You don't look so well", Hook tells her, watching her with worry. She rolls her eyes at him and tries to calm her breathing, because the last thing she wants it for him to know how terrified she is.

"Thanks", she says, crossing her arms in front of her chest, mirroring his earlier position. "Do you have a plan or not?"

Hook doesn't respond for a moment, just looks at her, and it's clear she's still an open book to him, but he doesn't try to make her feel better, doesn't try to say something stupid like "we're going to be okay" or "don't be afraid" or "I'll protect you", because this isn't a giant on top of a beanstalk, this is much worse.

"The way I see it, we've got three options: one - stay here, eat everything there is in the apartments below, hoping that those things go away, which by the looks of it won't happen anytime soon, two – make a run for it and die a pretty violent and bloody death, and three – jump."

Emma's eyes widen when he points at the building opposite the alley, about 10 feet away and 5 feet lower than the one they're standing on.

"You're insane", Emma says, shivering at the thought of not making it and landing broken smack dab in the middle of those things.

"Come on Swan, it's just a little jump", Hook says, and Emma looks around for another way, for an answer that wouldn't involve the possibility of her dying less than a day after she got here.

"I'm going downstairs; maybe there's some rope or something we can use", she tells him and starts for the fire escape.

He follows her, but it's clear he doesn't really believe there's any other way to do this except just jump and hope for the best.

* * *

The first apartment that opens onto the fire escape is a bust because the window is covered with boards and nailed shut from the inside, but there's no sign of anybody inside. It makes them both uncomfortable so they move on.

Hook smashes the glass on the window below, the noise making Emma flinch. She deliberately ignores the moans coming from the alley, climbing inside after Hook clears the way. It's ridiculous that he keeps offering her his hand, as if she's not capable of jumping 2 feet without help, and at the same time expects her to fly over ten feet of empty air without any aid.

The apartment is dusty, smelling stuffy, and it's clear that whomever had lived here left a long time ago, and took all the food, weapons and everything useful.

Emma is about to unlock the front door and go out in the hallway when something (or probably someone) slams against it and she quickly backs away.

"I think we should go", Hook says and pulls her back toward the fire escape, and her heart sinks because they're going to be screwed if the three apartments below are empty of anything useful too.

Next apartment they try, they find a can of beans that's probably expired, judging by the way it smells when Hook opens it, and Emma drops down on a couch in somebody's living room, wishing she could go to sleep and never wake up, like the couple in the bedroom did, their remains clinging to each other even in death.

"You were right", Emma says silently, looking up at Hook, who sets the can gently on the coffee table. She wants to smash it against the wall, but the last thing they need is to draw attention to themselves.

"About what?" He asks her absentmindedly, running his hand over the scruff on his chin, deep in thought.

"We're going to have to jump", Emma says, and he finally looks at her and sees how defeated she is.

"Why are you so scared, lass? You've faced Cora and her zombies and lived", Hook says with a grin that makes her remember Enchanted Forest and wish it could be ogres attacking her.

"I had Snow and Mulan and weapons when we faced those zombies, and they wasn't so many of them", Emma tells him, and he raises his eyebrow at her.

"Now you've got me. It could be worse, you know. You could be alone", he tells her, turning serious, and even though she doesn't want to think about that, her mind's got a will of its own and she's pretty certain she would've taken one look at the alley and just dove off the roof, instead of trying to survive in this world alone.

"And we're in the middle of an outbreak. This entire town can be infected, maybe even the whole country, or-" She knows she's panicking, but she can't help herself.

"You need to stop", Hook cuts her off, his voice raised. He's not exactly yelling at her, but it seems that he's figured out that babying her won't help either. "If this has spread beyond the city then we're going to deal with it, but to get out of the city and see, first we need to get away from this building, and for that you need to trust me when I tell you that we can make that jump."

Emma just stares at him, thinking about Henry and how she's never going to see him again.

"What's the point? We can never go back", she tells him, slumping further against the back of the couch. She feels so defeated, so hopeless, but a part of her wants him to convince her that everything's going to be okay, that they are going to survive and that someday they are going to find their way back to her family.

"How do you know?! We haven't been here for a day!"

"This is a world without magic, so that means that there are no portals here", Emma tells him pointedly, and he takes a deep breath, then changes tactic.

"What about your parents? Do you think they would just abandon you? From what I've seen, they would sooner die than stop looking for you", he tells her, pacing in front of the coffee table and stabbing the air with his hook for emphasis.

"You of all people should know how hard it is to break into a world without magic!" Emma exclaims, and he grins. It transforms his entire face and she has to fight the tiniest of smiles that's trying to break through her desperation.

"But I managed", he says, looking so proud of himself than Emma doesn't have the heart to point out the fact that it took him four times longer than an average human lifetime. She blinks because she's not going to cry, even if she's forced to spend the rest of her days in a hopeless place like this.

"Why do you even care how I feel?" Emma asks him, and he comes around the coffee table and leans down so close she almost expects him to kiss her and give her a declaration of his undying love.

She realizes that they haven't been this close since the beanstalk, since she pulled him close and wrapped her arms around him to save him from that tripwire, and that old flare of need returns, only this time it's different because now she knows for a fact that she can trust him, and suddenly she can't think about anything except how much she would enjoy kissing him.

"Because I can't do this alone", he tells her after a lengthy pause, his eyes locked onto hers, his arms and legs on either side of her. It's clear that he would never admit this to her if he could think of any other way to make her come to her senses and stop freaking out, and it's the precise moment her fear turns into determination.

She tells herself that it's because she's the daughter of Snow White and Prince Charming, because she's the Savior, because she's got magic inside her and because she's strong, but she knows it's not. It may have been the reason for her being able to weather any storm before, but in this world that isn't enough. In this world, she needs something more; she needs someone to believe in her, but also someone who needs her too. And no matter how strange and unlikely it seems, that person is Captain Hook.

"Okay, let's jump", she says, and he looks surprised that it had actually worked.

"You don't want to check the rest of the apartments first?"

"No, let's just go", she says, and leads the way back to the roof.

She doesn't tell him that she'd be surprised if they make it.

* * *

**Review?**


	4. Flight

**It's finally Sunday, and in a few hours we'll take Manhattan. Meanwhile in Zombieland, Emma and Hook move forward, and come a little closer. Thank you for all your input, and especially to those of you who gave this a shot even if you usually hate zombies. Enjoy the new chapter, and let me know what you think!**

* * *

Hook throws his sword to the roof they're aiming for and it lands a few feet away from the rail. He offers Emma his hand, and she takes it, finding a weird sense of comfort in his firm grip.

"Ready?"

"Let's just get it over with", Emma says, imagining Henry's face in her mind, sending all the love she feels for him across the distance separating them, hoping he'll somehow feel it, and know how sorry she is for leaving him.

They walk to the other side of the roof, glance at each other and start running, the edge of the roof coming sooner than Emma expects. She doesn't have time to think or be afraid; they're already flying through the air and she can see that they're never going to make it, her empty stomach dropping with her.

Emma closes her eyes, but instead of the pain caused by crashing on the pavement, her arm feels like it's being ripped off. She looks up and sees Hook dangling from the railing by his, well, _hook_, still holding onto her, his fingers wrapped around her forearm so tightly she's going to have bruises. Emma tries to find purchase on the brick wall, but she can't and now that she's so close to dying, she realizes that she wants to live, no matter what world she's in, no matter what awaits.

"Stop. Trashing. About", Hook grounds out through gritted teeth, and Emma stops moving altogether, glancing up toward his hook and hoping to God it won't fall off.

She never considers that he could drop her, because his grip is like a vice, his fingers digging into her flesh painfully, but she welcomes it since it's better than the alternative.

"I'll swing you, and you better be ready to grab the edge because I can only do it once", Hook tells her, and she nods, her eyes locked onto his. "And Swan?"

"Yes?"

"Don't fall", he says, making it sound like it would be the end of the world if she did.

Hook swings her and Emma grabs the edge, pulling herself up quickly and almost weeping with relief at the feeling of uneven concrete of the roof beneath her fingertips. She gets up and leans over the rail, stretching as far as she can until she finally reaches Hook's fingers and wraps both of her hands around his, pulling with all her might until she guides his hand to the rail. When she's certain that he's got a firm grip, she pulls at the collar of his jacket and helps him up, his weight toppling her over so that they land in a heap, laughter bubbling out of her mouth because she's never felt more alive.

They lay there like that, Hook's face pressed against her shoulder, her arms still wrapped around him. Both of them are breathing heavily, and if the circumstances were any different she'd either be pushing him off or pulling him even closer. After what he just did, she's more inclined to do the latter, but she knows better than to further complicate an already complicated situation.

"You okay?" She asks him, and his response is slightly muffled by the material of her jacket.

"Never better." He rolls off her and sits up, and Emma watches as he takes off first his hook than the metal contraption that's covering his stump. There are three gashes on his forearm where their combined weight made the metal dig into his skin, but he smiles at her and shakes his head as if it's nothing.

Emma tears off half of her undershirt and gingerly wraps it around the wound.

"Tighter."

"Are you sure? This must hurt like a son of a bitch."

He just smirks at her, and she remembers the night he got hit by a car and still managed to flirt with her, so she doesn't argue.

They find canned goods in the first apartment they check and Emma begins to feel like their luck's turning. She finds a grocery bag and starts filling it up, adding matches and a pack of candles to the mix.

Meanwhile, Hook's looking around the rest of the apartment and Emma's heart almost stops beating when she hears a moan from the direction of the bedroom, followed with the sounds of struggle. She sees his sword on the kitchen table and drops everything else, grabbing it and racing down the hall, hearing him curse, the moans growing more insistent.

Emma slides into the room stumbles in the doorway, but regains her footing in time to bury Hook's sword into the half-rotten head of a zombie that's got him pinned against the wall. The thing drops down and Hook wipes his hand against his jeans.

"Did it bite you?" Emma asks him, taking his hand in hers and turning it over, shivering from head to toe from both adrenaline and dread.

"No. I stuck that horrible porcelain figurine in its teeth", Hook says, and Emma just stands there looking at his hand, her fear of dying completely gone, replaced with something worse; the fear of him dying and leaving her here all alone.

"Swan, c'mon. You know you can't get rid of me that easily", he tells her, and she lets out something between a chuckle and a sob, quickly turning around and going back to the kitchen before she makes an even bigger fool of herself.

They eat quickly, hit a few more apartments and snuck out of the building, cutting through various back yards and alleyways instead of the main streets. They come across a few more walls made out of cars and she wonders if the people who had built them are still alive or are they among the zombies shuffling along the streets of this dead city. Their progress is slow because they have to climb a lot of fences and at the moment Hook can only use his single hand, but it's a lot safer than main streets.

On their way to the suburbs, Hook only has to kill four or five zombies, because the majority sticks to the center of the city. The first time he faces one of them, he stabs it through the chest, which accomplishes absolutely nothing.

"The head!" Emma yells, pretty sure her heart has stopped beating because the zombie is snapping its jaw dangerously close to Hook's hand. Hook recovers quickly, pulls the sword out and decapitates the zombie like it's nothing at all.

"What?" He asks her because she's standing there with her mouth open, her hand pressed against her heart.

"Nothing", she says, and he gives her one of his charming smiles, wiping his sword on a clean part of his otherwise blood splattered jeans.

"Impressed yet?" He says, wiggling his eyebrows, and Emma moves past him without a response, realizing only then how close she had come to dying that day in the Enchanted Forest. In hindsight, it seems like he had spent more time trying to avoid hurting her than actually fighting her.

Once they get away from the enclosed claustrophobic spaces in the city center, Emma feels a little more relaxed. They're still in danger, but at least here there are more directions they can run, and it's harder to get cornered.

They reach the suburbs by mid afternoon, and Hook suggests they spend the night in one of the houses. Emma agrees because even though she's exhausted more emotionally than physically, they need to formulate some kind of plan besides the general "getting out of dodge" direction they've been taking.

The house they choose is at the end of the street, complete with its own driveway and a small copse of trees at the back end of the property. In case things get messy, they should be able to escape before they're surrounded, and at this point it's everything Emma dares to hope for.

The water in the bathroom runs muddy when she opens the tap, but after a while it looks perfectly clear, and she showers quickly, putting on the clothes she finds in the closet in the master bedroom. The owners of the house are gone, and in their panic they had left a lot of food behind. Most of it is moldy, but some of it is still good, and dinner actually tastes like dinner.

* * *

She sits on the bed, waiting for Hook to come out of the bathroom so she can dress his arm again, a thousand thoughts running though her head. She's mostly focused on Henry and her parents, because thinking about future is hard because she doesn't know what waits for them when they leave the city, and she'd rather not guess.

When Hook comes out wrapped only in a towel, she's so stunned that for a moment she doesn't know what to say. If she's honest, he looks too good to be true, but this is definitely not the time to be honest with him. He raises his eyebrows at her and it's clear that he knows she can feel the attraction; it's practically sizzling in the air around them.

"See anything you like?" He asks her, and Emma makes an effort to look annoyed. It used to come so easily, but lately, her heart just isn't in it. Or maybe it's too much in it.

"I've seen much better", she quips, looking him over, her eyes lingering involuntary on the soaked material of her undershirt that's wrapped around his forearm. He follows her gaze and his face falls.

"Ah, that", he says, and it's not the first time that she notices how much his missing hand is weighing him down, making him feel inadequate. He starts to move past her but she grabs his hand and stops him, regretting her decision the second her turns the full power of his blue gaze on her.

"I need to change that dressing", she says meekly, looking away, her eyes drawn to his chest, the urge to run her fingers through his chest hair and pull him close almost too great to resist.

_Zombies, Emma, think about zombies_, shetells herself, and breathes a sigh of relief when he sits down next to her and she has something else to focus on beside his state of undress.

She rummages through the first aid kit and finds the hydrogen and some bandages, then carefully unwraps her undershirt. He winces when she peels it off, and Emma makes a face because ultimately, she had caused him this pain.

When she dabs the gashes with hydrogen, he curses under his breath and Emma thinks how their situation now is exactly the opposite from what it was on top of the beanstalk. She's as gentle as she can be when she wraps a fresh bandage around his forearm, but makes it tight this time, all the while feeling his eyes on her.

"I'm going to go find you some clothes", she says, taking the first aid kit and dropping it on the chest of drawers, then entering the walk in closet and returning with a pair of black cargo pants and a couple of T-shirts and hoodies. The weather isn't that cold yet, but it's only a matter of time before the temperature starts dropping. Since it's anybody's guess how long before they find another house like this, they agree that it's better they take everything they could need.

She leaves him the clothes and goes to pack everything they have so far, which includes some food, bottles of water, clothes and first aid kit, but no weapons. It's making her very uneasy that they only have one sword between them, and she'd give anything for a gun right about now. She's so exhausted, missing the bag twice before she finally shoves the last bit of provisions inside.

"Time to go to bed, darling", Hook says, and Emma lets out a little shriek, his dark shadow in the twilight of the kitchen making her think he's one of the zombies, and it's enough to convince her that she really needs rest.

She lies down on the bed and watches him push the armchair between the door and the window, sitting down and setting his sword across his knees. If they weren't in mortal danger, the sight of him wearing civilian clothes and holding a pirate sword would make her at least chuckle, but they are and she's grateful for any kind of protection available.

"Wake me up when it's my turn to keep watch", Emma mumbles, sleep coming over her quickly, the last thing she sees before her eyes close being the flash of his grin in the darkened room.

"Good night, love", he says, but she's already asleep.

* * *

**Review?**


	5. Nightmares

**After the last episode, I can only hope that reading this fic (and the others) helps you with the hiatus just like writing helps me. Enjoy and let me know what you think!**

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In her dream, the zombies are all around the house, and she can't find Hook in any of the rooms. She runs around in circles, up and down the stairs, checking every room again and again, but he's nowhere to be found. Her heart is beating too fast and she's breathless with panic, gripping his sword tightly, listening to the moaning as she stands in the master bedroom and watches out the window at the sea of dead surrounding her.

When she spots Hook, with his back against the shed, fighting off zombies with a shovel as they come at him from all sides, her insides drop and her knees almost buckle. One of them breaks through his frantic attempts to fend them all off at the same time, and sinks its teeth in his arm, Hook's cry of pain carrying up to her window.

"Killian!" Emma screams both in her dream and in the real world, waking herself up in the process and falling off the bed with a painful thud.

"Emma", he says her name softly, soothingly, getting up from the armchair and kneeling in front of her as she tries to get her breathing under control. She sits up slowly and looks up at his worried face, his hand hovering in the air for a moment before his fingers close on her shoulder.

"You were dying", Emma says, her voice breaking, her eyes wide open because she knows that if she closes them for only a second, she'd see it all again in vivid detail. It doesn't matter that the room is filled with daylight, it doesn't matter that his hand is so solid and warm; her dream could very well be a premonition and she can't shake the cold.

"I'm not dying, lass, and I don't intend to anytime soon", he tells her, giving her a reassuring smile, somehow managing not to make her feel foolish. For someone who's supposed to be the savior, a heroine, she's doing a lot of panicking lately.

"Promise me", she says, holding his gaze and wrapping her fingers around his wrist. His heartbeat is steady and strong, and it helps her get her own under control.

"I promise", he says, and she knows he wouldn't say it if he didn't intend to keep his promise, if he didn't believe that he can fight off anything that comes their way.

She wishes she could believe it too.

* * *

They are walking toward the main street when a man comes around the side of the house clutching his side, followed by about a dozen staggering zombies, all of them moaning, the stench of their decomposing bodies wafting toward Emma and Hook.

Hook takes off in the direction of the zombies, and Emma drops her backpack and races after him. She had gone to check the shed behind the house before they had left, and found an old baseball bat, which she slams against the forehead of the closest zombie now, gritting her teeth at the sickening crunch of its skull. Fighting feels so much better than running away, but she knows that if they run into a bigger group, that's exactly what they'll have to do.

Hook moves with such skill and precision, making her realize that he must've let her win their sword fight at the lake in the Enchanted Forest, and wonders if maybe he had planned to use the magic bean all along and let her have the compass.

Two minutes later the fight is over, eight beheaded zombies surrounding them, along with three more with bashed in heads. The man who was running from them is slumped against the side of the porch, and when Emma gets closer, she realizes he's crying.

"Hey, it's okay", she says, knowing how hollow and hopeless her words must sound.

He lifts his head and looks past her at Hook, then says: "Kill me."

Emma looks over her shoulder at Hook, who raises his eyebrows at her before bringing his sword down on one of her zombies who's still feebly moving.

"What's he on about?"

"You have to kill me. I don't want to become one of those things", the man says, lifting his shirt and showing them a bite wound, and Emma scrambles back. It's an impulsive move, and he doesn't look the least bit offended, but she still feels awful.

"When did all this start?" She asks him, waving at the bodies on the ground.

"The apocalypse? Are you kidding me?" He curses under his breath and glares at her. He's shaking and his skin is pale and clammy, making him look dead already.

"Answer her question", Hook says sternly, coming to stand next to Emma. She rolls her eyes because she doesn't need him to speak for her, but she has to admit that the guy responds better to Hook than to her.

"About nine months ago. Did you two just stumble here from a parallel universe or something?" He chuckles to himself, but Emma ignores the comment.

"How far has this spread?" She asks fearfully, and his answer floors her.

"The entire world. Seriously, where have you been?"

Emma turns away and her eyes meet Hook's, who doesn't look nearly as stricken as she feels. He seems to be taking everything in stride, and even though she loves that about him, sometimes she wishes she wasn't the only one freaking out. She thinks about Henry, and thanks God again that he's safe with her parents. It's only been a few days but she already misses him so bad her heart physically aches every time she thinks about him, but she'd rather never see him again than put him through even a second of this unforgiving world.

"I'm sorry, please don't go", the man says, and Emma is horrified that he would think she'd abandon him like this. She takes a deep breath and kneels next to him, giving him her hand when he reaches for it. He's probably her age, but he looks much older, his eyes sunken and his hair already graying.

"How long until you…" she trails off, because she doesn't want to say it, doesn't want to make it real. She doesn't want to acknowledge the fact that every single body that is lying on the grass behind her was once a human being with a family, friends and dreams. Every single zombie she and Hook killed today was once somebody's child, and it's too much to take, so she doesn't dwell on it.

"Once I'm dead, a few minutes, unless your boyfriend beheads me right now", he says, holding her gaze, so courageous and afraid at the same time, his cold fingers making her shiver too. She doesn't tell him that Hook isn't her boyfriend, and she's grateful that Hook doesn't comment on it either, even though it makes everything even worse. Given his track record of flirting and saying the most inappropriate things at the worst time, they must be in a world of trouble if he's staying silent now.

"Are you sure you want us to do that?" Emma asks, because a part of her is unable to grasp what she's about to do.

"I'm already dead. I just don't want to come back from it like that", he says, pointing at the bodies, his eyes never leaving her face.

"Okay. But first, tell me your name", Emma says, offering him a tiny smile, her heart breaking when he smiles back.

"It's Evan", he says, the look in his eyes already distant, like he's not really there anymore.

"I'm Emma, and that's Killian", she says, her resolve cracking a little now that she has to ask Hook for his sword and take a man's life.

She gets up slowly, feeling a hundred years old, Evan's hand slipping from her grip as she turns to Hook.

"Thank you", Evan whispers, and Emma keeps her eyes on Hook's.

"Step aside", he tells her, holding his sword away when she reaches for it. "He asked me to do it." His gaze is unwavering, and Emma feels both pissed off and relieved that he's going to do this for her. Even though Evan had originally asked Hook to do it, she feels that it's somehow her responsibility. Reluctantly, she moves to the side, and turns, keeping her eyes on Evan until the last second, and then she closes them and winces at the sound of his head hitting the grass.

* * *

Now that they know that the situation is the same everywhere they go, neither of them sees much point in going anywhere, so they go back to the house they've spent the night in, searching through a few houses on the way. They find a lot of dead people and spoiled food, and Emma feels exhausted from so much death and false hope. Hook doesn't say much, and it's strange to see him so subdued.

When they reach their house and the front door closes behind them, it feels like coming home, and inevitably, it makes her think about Henry. Everything makes her think about Henry.

"What are we going to do?" She asks Hook after lunch, counting the cans they have left and realizing that they won't last them until the end of the week. Right now, she's incapable of thinking beyond tomorrow, and hopes he's got some kind of plan.

"Well, first we need to find somewhere more isolated than this house, which means we need a map. I'd suggest we stay here for the time being and thoroughly search the rest of the houses. What do you say, lass?" Hook asks her, and she agrees, coming around the table with the first aid kit.

"Let's see that arm", she says, and he shakes his head, starting to get up from the table.

"It's fine."

"No it's not", Emma says, laying her hand on his shoulder and keeping him where he is. He looks up at her, his blue eyes meeting hers, and she finally allows herself to fully acknowledge all the attraction between them. They could very well be the last two people in the world, and her need for him only keeps growing.

"We can't risk you getting an infection", she tells him firmly, and he lets her redress his wound.

Seeing his stump in the harsh light of day is more uncomfortable than it was last night, when shadows dulled the jagged scar and the abrupt way his forearm just stops hadn't been such a shock. She feels a surge of anger at Gold for doing this to him, and her fingers are infinitely gentle when they brush against it as she wraps the bandage around his forearm. He freezes at her touch and looks away, and Emma fights the urge to caress his face with her fingers and make him look at her because he's got the strangest expression on his face, as if he expects her to stop what she's doing and wipe her hand on her jeans. The fact that he's letting her see his vulnerability at all speaks volumes, and Emma feels a rush of affection for him that leaves her a little tongue-tied.

"Relax, I'm almost done", she tells him, making a point to tie the edges of the bandage in a neat little bow, her fingers brushing over the scar when he pulls his arm out of her grasp. She thinks about all the times he wiggled his stump in her face and asked for his hook, and realizes it had always been covered. He seems to think he should spare her of looking at it when it's out in the open, and she finds it both ridiculous and endearing.

"Let's start with this house, shall we?" Hook says and practically runs out of the kitchen, and Emma looks at his retreating back, wishing she could tell him that it's not as bad as he thinks, that she doesn't find it off-putting, that she accepts it as a part of him, but she doesn't because she knows he'd see it as an open invitation to make another pass at her. The fact that she wouldn't mind it if he did makes her jump up and focus on searching for anything that could help them survive.

She hears him doing the same in the living room and sighs, knowing that it's only a matter of time before she finds her way into his arms, because from the second she had laid eyes on him, it was inevitable.

They were meant to be right from the start.

* * *

**Review?**


	6. Two Lanes of Freedom

**I finally know exactly how this story is going to end! I had about a dozen possible scenarios playing in my head (most of which were really really depressing), but now I've found my perfect ending and I can't wait for us to get there. To answer those of you who asked if we're going to see the Charmings, the answer is: of course, a few chapters from now. I don't know if I mentioned this before, but this zombie apocalypse world Emma and Hook are stuck in isn't the world from The Walking Dead, or Resident Evil or any such franchise, and even though there are similar themes in this fic, we won't be seeing any of those characters here, sorry. On with the story, thanks for the reviews and follows, and let me know what you think!**

* * *

It takes them a week to search all the houses on the block, and at the end of it they have a car and enough gas for about a hundred miles, which is enough to get them where they intend to go. Most of the houses are already cleaned out, but one of them has a guest house that somehow got bypassed by the people who went through before, and it's filled to the brim with provisions. Its owners are zombie food in the main house, but since there are only two of them, Hook makes quick work of them.

Even though there hasn't been a lot of zombies stumbling to their street because they're always quiet and do their best not to draw attention to themselves, Emma's stomach is constantly tied in knots with dread. They still haven't found another weapon after that first baseball bat, and she'd give just about anything for a gun, even though she knows firing it would make a lot of unnecessary noise. Still, Hook's sword is better than a baseball bat, and she didn't really argue when he gave it to her a couple of days ago after she almost got bitten because swinging a baseball bat in confined space is trickier than it looks.

Ten days after the curse hit and they ended up in the middle of a city infested with zombies, they pack the Trans Am with food, water and other things that could come in handy someday, and Emma glances at the map again before starting the car and driving out of the suburbs.

The interstate is completely blocked with parked cars, but she never had the intention of going on it anyway. Instead, she takes a right turn and they start down a local road that's completely empty of cars, people or zombies, and if feels like freedom at last.

"Do you think you can navigate for me?" Emma asks, holding out the map to Hook. She glances at him and his annoyed expression makes her smile for the first time since they got here.

"I'm a captain. I'd like to see you try and find somebody better equipped for navigating than me", he says, taking the map and spreading it across his lap.

"I don't think navigating a road is the same as navigating the ocean", Emma tells him, trying to keep her eyes on the road and him at the same time. To her surprise, her turns the map the right way around, finds their current position after ten seconds and tells her to keep going for another twenty miles, and then to turn right.

Emma makes an effort not to look impressed, but Hook smirks and raises his eyebrow at her and she knows she's not fooling him.

"So you know how to read a map", she says, pushing the accelerator down because the road is straight as an arrow and she can see ahead for miles.

"I know how to do a lot of other things too", he says, and Emma rolls her eyes, secretly pleased that he's back to making stupid innuendos. It seems that now that the bandage is gone and he's got his hook back, all the cockiness has returned too.

For an hour, they both forget where they are and how dangerous it is, and they talk about something other than survival. He tells her stories about his travels, and she tells him how Storybrooke was before him, and how long it took for her to believe in the curse and finally break it.

"And all that time I was stuck in a bubble with Cora, waiting for you", he says softly, and Emma smiles sheepishly, downshifting and turning on another road when he tells her to. Even with the limited amount of gas they have, she trusts him with the map, believing that he's going to get them to their destination the quickest way possible.

"Sorry. That must've been… difficult?"

"It was bloody uncomfortable. She's so fickle, and I was pretty much walking around on eggshells, but she still managed to threaten to take my heart about a dozen times", Hook says, rubbing his chin. Emma knows him well enough by now to notice that even though he's playing it down, Cora actually scares him, even if he would never admit it to anybody.

"I guess now we don't have to worry about Cora or Regina or Gold anymore", Emma says wistfully, swallowing the lump in her throat when it hits her that it also means she won't see Henry or her parents again.

"Yeah, the only thing we have to worry about are zombies trying to eat us", Hook says, grinning at her, and then there they are, flying down a country road, laughing like a couple of idiots because they've been on the verge of dying violently for days, which somehow made them feel more alive than they've ever felt.

They're going down the road leading up to the trail that should take them to a cabin they hope to find unoccupied, since its owners are dead on their front lawn back in the suburbs, when Emma glances at Hook and asks: "Do you want me to teach you how to drive?"

For a moment Hook looks at her as if she'd gone crazy, glancing between the wheel and gear stick and her legs, and she's certain he'll decline, but then he shrugs and nods.

"I suppose it could be useful", he says noncommittally, and Emma stops the car in the middle of the road so that they can exchange places.

Once they figure out the best way for him to handle the steering wheel with his hook, he picks it up quicker than she had expected.

"It's not that much harder than sailing, right?" Emma asks, laying her head against the back of her seat, completely relaxed. Seeing Hook drive is so strange, especially given the fact that she had only showed him how about ten minutes ago.

"You don't know anything about sailing, love, do you? Have you ever even been on a ship?" He asks her, half smile playing on his lips, but he never takes his eyes off the road.

"I've been on a ferry… once", Emma says, and Hook chuckles.

"Well, sailing a ship is harder than driving a car. You've got the helm and all the sails to worry about, not to mention the wind and the currents, and trying to turn a four hundred thousand pound ship around is a bloody nightmare."

"I'll take your word for it", Emma says, than a thought occurs to her and she sits up straighter. "We should find a boat."

"What?"

"We should find a boat and live on it. Think about it. Zombies can't swim, so if we're on a boat-"

"They can't get to us", he finishes her sentence and looks at her, and Emma is so grateful that's it's him here with her, because he gets her, and in a situation like this it's the most important thing. The car veers to the left a bit and she leans across the seat and gets them back to the middle of their lane, aware that he's still watching her. Hook's hand covers hers on the steering wheel and she looks at him under her eyelashes, but he's back to watching the road.

Emma keeps her hand where it is, and they're both silent until they reach the end of the road, every inch of her so aware of him she's a little breathless.

"There's just a little problem", Hook finally says as he stops the car and Emma leans back against her seat.

"It's a good idea and you know it", Emma says petulantly, forcing her breathing back under control, and he raises his hand to stop her from arguing.

"I'm not saying it's not. But we're a thousand miles away from the ocean, and there's no more gas in the tank", he says calmly, tapping the fuel gauge.

"Then it's a long-term plan. There has to be more gas somewhere, and when we find enough we'll go; I'm not saying we need to leave right now", Emma tells him, and he exaggerates his sigh of relief.

"Oh thank God. Here I thought you wanted to go back on the road before we even found the cabin, because that would be a bit daffy."

"I'm just thinking ahead. If this cabin is really as secluded as it sounds, we're going to be fine, but there's still a chance those suckers will stumble over it accidentally." Emma shivers at the thought of waking up and finding herself surrounded again, and makes a mental note to figure out a way to leave the cabin without having to fight through a swarm of zombies.

She doesn't even want to entertain the possibility that the cabin isn't even there and that they came all this way for nothing.

* * *

They hide the car as best as they can, parking it behind a bush and covering it with branches and fallen leaves. It's fall, so there isn't much cover, but the car itself is black and Emma doesn't really expect people stumbling on it by accident anyway. The only living person they've seen in the past ten days was Evan, so chances are that the car will be fine until they find the cabin and return for the rest of their stuff.

Emma pulls out a map of the woods with a bright red X on the site where the cabin is supposed to be and they start between then trees, uneasiness taking over her again. It's eerily silent here, and the trees are close together, making her feel claustrophobic. The fallen leaves are wet and squishy from the last rain and she keeps expecting a zombie to stumble right in her path and bite her before she's got a chance to react. At least Hook's got her back, so nobody can come up to her from behind, but it's a small comfort, and her nerves are so on edge she lets out a yelp and jumps back when a hedgehog darts across her way.

"Would you like me to go first?" Hook asks her, his steadying hand on her waist burning her skin through her clothes, and she's grateful that he doesn't make it sound condescending or like he's laughing at her.

"I'd just keep looking over my shoulder", Emma tells him without turning around and starts forward again, and after about half an hour they come upon a clearing, in the middle of which is nestled a cabin made of dark wood with blue shutters, surrounded with an overgrown garden.

Still, they know better than to presume anything, so they walk around it in search of any disturbance, and carefully unlock the door, checking the kitchen, the small bathroom and climbing the rickety stairs to the bedroom before they are finally able to relax.

"Welcome home miss Swan", Hook tells her and she looks up at him and smiles faintly, because a part of her keeps waiting for the other shoe to drop. Everything about this cabin seems perfect, and if she's learned anything in her life, it's that perfect never lasts.

* * *

**Review?**


	7. Cabin in the Woods

**Here we go, things are starting to happen between our babies; nothing big yet, that's what next chapter is for. Thanks for reading and leaving reviews, it means a lot that you keep supporting this story, even despite the zombies.  
**

* * *

As soon as the sun starts setting, both the cabin and the clearing around it are plunged into darkness, and Emma lights a candle, placing it on the counter away from the window.

"Blow it out, Swan!" Hook practically yells, jumping to his feet from the couch, crossing the kitchen and pressing his palm down against it. The room is almost completely dark, and Emma glares daggers at him, waiting for her eyes to adjust.

"Why did you do that?!"

"We found this cabin with marvelous amount of divine help, and I'll be damned if I let you attract more people here", he says, and Emma laughs, but it sounds hollow.

"What people? We haven't seen anybody alive since Evan", she says, feeling defeated, refusing to accept that he's right.

"That doesn't mean there's nobody out there. We can't be the last two people in this realm", he says, and she doesn't have to see his face to know that he's giving her that stupid, breathtaking smile.

"So what do you suggest? We stumble around here in the dark every night?"

"Of course not", he says, and brushes past her, hanging his jacket in the place meant for a curtain, effectively blocking the window. "Now you can light it again", he says, and Emma fumbles with the matches, feeling uneasy and a bit panicky even though she knows that the door is firmly closed, and even if something came through it, it would first have to get past Hook.

Once she lights the candle again, Hook goes outside to make sure that no light is escaping around his jacket, and Emma lights a couple more candles, setting them around the kitchen before she goes to open a few cans for dinner.

"As far as I can see, we're good. What's for dinner?" Hook asks, slipping back inside and closing the door with his foot. Emma nudges a can of pears toward him and hands him the fork she had unpacked earlier.

"Fruit again?" Hook grumbles but starts eating, and Emma rolls her eyes.

"It's either that or melted candy bars. We've got beans, but I don't feel like running outside collecting firewood tonight. If you want it, you can cook."

"You're angry with me", he says, always so aware of her mood, but Emma doesn't even look at him. "Emma, what's wrong?"

"I don't know what you're talking about", she says, feeling strangely irritated even though she should be ecstatic; this cabin is an equivalent of winning the lottery, and they were incredibly lucky to find out about it. So then why does she feel so unhappy?

"Are you worried about your lad? Because I'm sure the prince and Snow will take good care of him", he says, and Emma's fork clatters to the table.

"He needs _me_! I'm his mother and he needs me, and all I ever do is leave!" She yells at him, standing up from the table and starting for the door. None of this is his fault, but he's the only one here and she needs to let it all out before she goes insane. When she passes by him he grabs her hand and pulls her down in his lap, his arms holding her against him gently but firmly. She fights him, she yells at him to let her go, but he doesn't budge.

"I'm not letting you go out there", he says against her ear, and all the fight goes out of her. She sits there, slumped against him like a ragged doll, crying in big heaving sobs, every fiber of her being longing for her son, for her parents and for a world where everyday life is so much easier.

Hook murmurs nonsense in her ear, his hand combing through her hair, and Emma presses her face against his shoulder, finally accepting that he won't let her go through any of this alone.

* * *

Emma stands under the spray of lukewarm water in the bathroom, fed by the well behind the cabin, feeling a bit ashamed of her earlier breakdown, not to mention surprised that Hook hadn't tried to take advantage of her state. As soon as she had calmed down, he let her go, and she grabbed spare clothes and escaped to the bathroom. She takes her time, washing her hair and combing it in front of the mirror, the shadows under her eyes visible even with the soft light coming from a single candle on the sink.

Hook is patiently waiting his turn, sitting on the couch and looking like he hasn't got a care in the world. Emma goes to lock the door, clearing the table and rummaging through the cupboards to keep herself busy because she's exhausted from crying and it's Hook's turn to go to sleep first. She doubts that anyone will come here tonight, dead or alive, but they've come such a long way to throw caution to the wind now.

"Are you sure you don't want to go to bed first?" Hook asks her from the bottom of the stairs and she sits down on the kitchen chair, avoiding the couch because she knows that there's no way she'd be able to stay awake there.

"Goodnight, Hook", she tells him without turning around and listens as he climbs up and settles into bed.

The hours pass slowly, and she finally moves from the uncomfortable chair to the couch, which isn't the most comfortable of places either, but it's marginally better, and an hour before it's Hook's turn to keep watch, she falls asleep, sliding sideways until her head settles against the armrest.

* * *

Emma wakes up screaming, shooting up from the couch and stumbling right into Hook's arms. It's still dark outside, and she's shaking like a leaf, feeling cold and even more tired than she had felt before.

"I fell asleep", she says dazedly, and Hook picks her up and carries her upstairs, settling her under the covers, ignoring her protests.

"It's my turn to keep watch, sweetheart", he tells her, and Emma feels herself drifting, his smell surrounding her, making her feel safe and relaxed, comforted by the fact that a few hours ago he was occupying the same bed she's lying in now. It feels like he's still in the room with her, even though he's not.

* * *

By the time she wakes up in the morning, Hook had already discovered a way to the basement and he's positively glowing with excitement as he leads her down the rickety steps.

Emma holds the candle up and looks around, unable to believe her eyes. In between the animal heads mounted on the walls, there are more weapons than she had ever seen in one place. Rifles, pistols, swords, hatchets and bows, everything looks in perfect condition, gleaming in the candlelight. Emma reaches for a Magnum revolver, but Hook pulls her away toward a bow that looks similar to the one Snow uses.

"We can make arrows for this, and if you're any good with it, you can hunt and we can finally have meat for dinner", he says, looking at her expectantly.

"Or we can just use one of these guns", Emma tells him, and he shakes his head.

"There are no bullets anywhere in the cabin. I already looked."

Emma glances around and realizes that even though the weapons are real, they are mounted in such a way that it's clear that they are just for show. She's glad that whoever owned this cabin loved both cold and fire weapons equally because swords, hatchets and bows will definitely come in handy. She chooses one of the swords from the wall and hands Hook's sword back to him before going upstairs to change.

After breakfast they explore the woods and find birch saplings for the arrows. Hook tells her that cedar would be preferable, but unfortunately there isn't any in these woods.

"Where did you even learn how to make arrows?" Emma asks as they make their way back, feeling a bit guilty because she still hadn't told him that she has never tried to shoot from a bow. She figures she can learn, but mostly she hopes that it's a skill that had somehow been passed to her from Snow.

"In Neverland. The Lost boys are quite adept at archery, and kind enough to teach me how to make them."

"What were you doing in Neverland?"

"Which time?" He asks, and Emma grins.

"Now you're just trying to impress me."

"I'm always trying to impress you", he tells her, his voice softening, and Emma looks at him steadily, not really sure how to respond to that.

The moment is ruined when somebody grabs her hair from behind, and she can see her entire life flashing in front of her eyes, the smell of rotting flesh making her sick. She struggles to get away and manages somehow, losing quite a few strands of hair, turning around and driving a sword through the zombie's eye socket.

"I hate to say this because your hair is lovely, but I think you should cut it off", Hook says, coming to her side and running his fingers though it, removing bits of zombie flesh from it. Emma's skin is crawling and she knows he's right, but she can't imagine parting with her locks, not after having her hair this long since she can remember.

"I'll keep it in a bun from now on", she says when he's done, and they start back for the cabin.

* * *

The saplings are pretty dry, but it still takes a week before he can start shaping them into arrows. In the meantime, they search the woods for fallen feathers, eventually coming to a small lake and finding a goose nest next to it. The geese are gone, but there are plenty of feathers left in it, and they take every single one.

Since Hook only has one hand, Emma helps him a lot with the arrows, and she can feel them getting closer every day. He keeps making innuendos, and she keeps shutting him down, but he just smiles at her, like it's obvious to him that she won't be able to resist for much longer.

The worst thing is that she knows he's right.

* * *

Almost a month passes before the arrows are ready, and their food supply is running pretty low. Emma marches 30 paces from the edge of the woods, raises the bow and aims, then lowers it and turns to Hook.

"Don't hover. Can you just go away?" She asks, and he looks genuinely hurt. "You're distracting me", she adds, and then he beams at her. She can't stand seeing him hurt and he's taking advantage of it, but she's way past caring. It's happened slowly, and it's too late for her to do anything about it.

Hook takes a couple of steps backward, giving her more room, and she raises the bow again, letting the arrow fly and completely missing the tree she had been aiming for.

"It seems that archery isn't hereditary after all", he says, and she grits her teeth, taking another arrow and trying again.

"And you're doing it wrong", Hook tells her, coming to stand behind her.

"Oh come on. Now you're going to tell me that you know how to shoot this too?"

"Of course I know how", Hook says, aligning her hips with his hand. "You'd be hard pressed to find a weapon I can't use."

Emma finds it hard to focus on the target with him so close to her, but she still makes an effort, trying to ignore the way he smells and feels, and follow all his tips to the letter.

After a few more misses, she starts hitting the target, and soon it's clear that she really is her mother's daughter. It makes her feel closer to Snow somehow, and even though she still misses her and Charming and Henry terribly, she begins to accept that this is her life now, and that there are upsides to it, one of which is getting closer to Hook. If they had stayed in Storybrooke, she doubts it would've happened, and that would've been a damn shame because they're so good together.

Three days later, she manages to shoot her first game, a baby deer, and starts crying because it looks right at her before drawing its last breath. Hook wipes her tears away and tells her that she's magnificent, and a couple of hours later they eat their first meaty dinner in over a month.

* * *

**Review?**


	8. Safe

**I think you're going to like this chapter a lot, which means you're going to be pretty mad about the cliffhanger at the end of it, but I'll update the fic on Sunday, so the wait won't be as long as usual. Fair warning, though, next chapter is about the Charmings, and the one after that will sort out the cliffhanger. Thanks for reading, and especially for leaving such nice reviews.  
**

* * *

After dinner, Hook takes her outside and points at the trees. Emma stares at them really hard, finally turning to him because she doesn't get it.

"What am I looking at?"

"Just go forward", he says, and Emma does that, looking back at him over her shoulder. When she reaches the trees, she trips a wire, and there's insistent jingling coming from both sides of the trees ahead.

"Remember the security system the giant had? Now we have our own. Or, rather, a warning system", he says, and it feels like the best present anybody has ever given her.

"When did you do this?" She asks him, realizing that she can't remember any occasion when they weren't together since they had come here.

"While you were sleeping", he says, and Emma covers the distance between them, slams into him and kisses him, smiling against his mouth because he's so surprised she almost topples him over. He recovers quickly enough, and when he kisses her back, she wishes she had done it sooner, because the ground beneath her feet might be moving, and she can't remember ever wanting anybody as much as she wants him.

When they pull away they're both completely breathless, and she supposes she looks as dazed as he does.

"Bloody hell, lass."

"I know", Emma says and they walk back to the cabin hand in hand.

* * *

The sun is setting by the time she clears away the dishes from dinner, feeling anxious and giddy because tonight they don't have to keep watch, and that means she either lets Hook sleep on the couch or they share the bed upstairs.

There's no way she's letting Hook sleep on the couch because she's still feeling hot from that kiss, and when she imagines him in the shower, it's hard to resist joining him in there. Somehow, she does, but kisses him again as soon as he comes out, then looks him over, surprised that he hadn't come out wearing only a towel again.

"Something wrong?"

"Absolutely nothing", Emma says, smiling so wide her cheeks hurt. She can't believe they're doing this, that they're finally moving forward. "I'll be right back", she says and goes into the bathroom, showering and changing in record time.

Hook's waiting on the couch when she emerges from the bathroom wearing sweatpants and a pink T-shirt, her hair in a loose bun secured with a pencil. His eyes follow her as she approaches him, takes his hand and pulls him to his feet, then leads him toward the stairs.

"You can sleep with me from now on", Emma says, and turns to look at him. His eyes are crinkled at the corners because he's trying really hard not to give her one of his self-satisfied smirks. "If you say something stupid now, I might still change my mind and let you sleep on the couch."

Hook wisely chooses to stay quiet.

* * *

They slide under the covers, turned toward each other, but they don't touch. Faint smell of soap fills her nose and she closes her eyes, inhaling him, her skin tingling because she's never been more aware of another person, and she still can't believe that person is Hook.

"You're going to want to take this slow, aren't you?" Hook says, his hand brushing hers under the covers. Emma opens her eyes and tries to see him in the moonlight coming through the roof window, but she can only make out the outline of his cheek.

"You were right", she says softly.

"About what?"

"When you said that Cora had let us keep our memories because it would hurt more."

"You're afraid that something's going to happen to me", he says, and his ability to read her like this shouldn't surprise her anymore, but it still does.

"I know myself, Killian. I know what I'm like when I'm in love. I give myself completely, and the thought of loving you the way I know I would and then watching you die, or worse, having to kill you…" Emma trails off and swallows the lump in her throat, blinking fast to keep the tears from falling.

She knows it's already too late. It was too late even before she had called him Killian, because the thought of this world without him, of any world without him is making her want to scream and cling to him and never let him go. It's the reason she went on that trip with Gold so readily; even then she couldn't handle the possibility of losing him, even if he wasn't hers to lose or save.

"I think it's too late", he says, and Emma blinks, for a moment wondering if she had spoken her thoughts out loud. "I'm already in love with you, Emma, and the thought of anyone harming you is too painful to imagine."

"Who would've thought that pirates are so in touch with their emotions", Emma says and Killian chuckles, the sound drawing her closer to him until their noses are almost touching.

"I can't promise you that we're going to survive this, but I can promise never to leave you of my own will", he says, his voice low and serious, his fingers cupping her face. Emma closes her eyes, marveling at the gentleness in his touch because she knows how much violence he's capable of. When she lays her hand against his chest, she can feel his heart beating steadily in her palm, and knows that she would've believed him even if it wasn't.

"I'm never going to leave you either", she says, closing the distance between them, the kiss gentle at first, tentative and slow, because neither of them can quite believe that this is happening. As his arms circle her and he pulls her flush against him, his warmth and strength soothing her fears for the time being, they abandon all restraint and all the passion that was always between them finally finds an outlet.

He pulls the pencil from her hair and tangles his fingers in it when it cascades over her shoulders and back. Emma cups his face in her hands, feeling his stubble on her fingertips, her tongue exploring his mouth, warmth rushing through her veins, her breathing quickening.

To her immense surprise, he pulls away first and settles down with her head on his shoulder, his arms still around her. She wants to take this slow, but if he had kept kissing her, she's pretty sure she wouldn't have been able to resist taking things further tonight. Somehow, she keeps forgetting that he's really a gentleman, and he keeps reminding her.

"Good night", she murmurs, wrapping her arm around his waist, feeling sheltered and untouchable by the world outside. On some level she knows it's not wise, but she chooses to ignore that feeling, to just enjoy this and let herself be happy.

"Sweet dreams, love", he says, and even though he had called her love countless times before, it feels different now, more meaningful, because she knows it's not just a pet name anymore. His lips graze her forehead and Emma lies awake, listening to the sound of his breathing long after he falls asleep.

* * *

Emma dreams about Henry, and for the first time since they got here, it's not a nightmare. He looks happy and healthy, doing his homework in a brightly lit kitchen while Snow cooks. It's a perfect snapshot of everyday life and it makes Emma smile in her sleep.

Henry closes his books when he's done and looks up right at her, smiling and saying: "Don't worry about me mum, I'm fine." It feels so real that she reaches for him, but he's like a ghost, untouchable, just a little out of her reach.

Emma snuggles closer to Killian and keeps dreaming, his arms around her like a shield against nightmares of both the physical and spiritual world.

* * *

Morning sun wakes Emma at dawn, and for a moment she's completely disorientated. She looks down and sees their entwined legs, most of the covers hanging off the bed, then up at Killian's face, trying to decide if she can get out of bed without waking him. There are purple shadows under his eyes because these past days he hadn't slept for longer than a few hours a night, and it's entirely her fault. She shifts slowly, but his arms just tighten around her, so she stays put, entertaining herself with trying to count all his eyelashes. It seems unfair that such long, thick and dark lashes should be wasted on a man, especially someone as masculine as him, but at the same time it's adorable that her tall dark and handsome pirate has such a feminine feature.

Emma chuckles softly at the direction her thoughts are taking, feeling strangely giddy and positive now that they had admitted their feelings for each other. Her rational side keeps telling her that this can't end well, that she's already too relaxed, but the possibility of zombies stumbling over their little haven is hard to take in, not when they're close like this and the sun is shining brightly, dust dancing in shafts of light.

"What are you giggling about?" He asks her sleepily, frowning because the sun is right in his face, so he presses it against her shoulder.

"Sorry I wake you", she says sheepishly, running her hand through his soft, silky hair, ignoring the nagging of that part of her that keeps trying to make her come down from her cloud.

"You didn't wake me. It's the stupid sun; we really need to find some curtains for that window", Killian mumbles, and Emma laughs.

"Aren't you a regular Martha Stewart?"

"Martha Stewart? You're comparing me to a woman?" He asks incredulously, and Emma laughs so hard her stomach muscles hurt. He opens his eyes and looks at her, and the second their eyes meet her laughter dies because there's so much heat in that look, so much intent. She glances at his lips and he doesn't waste time, kissing her and rolling them so that she's beneath him, his weight pinning her down. Her pulse races with anticipation, and all thoughts of taking this slow abandon her because the two of them coming together feels like destiny, fate, and star crossed love coming to pass all rolled into one. Her hands go under his T-shirt and travel over his skin, his hard muscles shifting under her fingers when he leans down and kisses her again.

He starts pulling her sweatpants down just as his alarm system starts to ring insistently, making them both freeze, their eyes locked together in silent understanding. For a moment they stay like that, but whatever it is, it won't go away by itself.

"It seems that we've got company", he says, and Emma's already racing heart skips a beat, then starts slamming against her ribcage so hard it hurts. They scramble out of bed, he takes his sword and she takes hers, and then they race out of the cabin ready to fight off however many zombies come stumbling out of the woods.

When they get out of the garden, they find themselves staring down the barrels of two hunting rifles, aimed straight at their chests.

* * *

**Review?**


	9. Let's Make a Deal

**I'm sorry about the cliffhanger, I really hadn't expected it would upset you so much. Here's the new chapter that gives some insight into what the Charming's have been up to, and tomorrow I'll post the resolution for the cliffhanger. Thanks for reading!  
**

* * *

_Ellsworth, Maine_

Snow can't sleep. She lies in bed for hours next to Charming, thinking about Emma, wondering where she is, wondering if she's even alive. She thinks that she would know if Emma was gone, that her own heart would stop beating too, but what if it wouldn't? What if all the years apart from her daughter had dulled that connection between them? She tells herself that somehow, they are going to find Emma again, but the thought that it could take them another twenty-eight years is too painful to entertain.

Charming turns in his sleep and his arms release her, and Snow slides from under the covers and exits their room, padding down the hallway and carefully pushing open the door to Henry's bedroom, poking her head in.

Henry is sitting under his Star Wars blanket, the beam of his flashlight spilling on the floor, and Snow crosses the room and joins him under it.

"I couldn't sleep", he tells her sheepishly and puts down his book, the one Snow had given him a little over a year ago, when she wasn't even aware that she was Snow, and that he was her grandson. It still blows her mind that her favorite student is the son of her baby girl, but she guesses it was the reason she was so drawn to him from the start.

"I understand, Henry. I couldn't sleep either", she says, and he almost looks disappointed that she's not mad. "Which story are you reading?"

Henry shrugs and turns another leaf.

"I just read the endings. I wish mum and Hook were in this book too, so I could read about what's happening to them now", he says, looking at Snow like she could somehow make it happen. It's a heavy burden, but she's grateful for it, grateful that Henry is safe in her care. She only wishes she could find some way to help him keep his faith in happy endings, but she can't because she's not sure if she still believes in them herself.

"I wish for that too", Snow tells him, thinking that if she only knew where Emma was, it would be easier to deal with the distance. The worst is not knowing anything, and uncertainty is eating her up inside every minute of every day.

"What if we could?" Henry asks her, his eyes burning with strange intensity that Snow finds a little disturbing.

"How?"

"Regina could do something magical!"

"Henry-"

"She could, and I know she would if I asked her."

Snow feels like she'd just been punched in the gut.

"You know we can't go back to Storybrooke", Snow says, trying to stay calm and authoritative. She hopes he won't point out that he can go, even if she and Charming can't, because there's no way she would let him go anywhere without her.

He's everything she's got left of Emma, and she's not letting him out of her sight.

"Regina isn't in Storybrooke anymore", Henry says softly, avoiding Snow's eyes.

"What? You talked to Regina?" Snow's voice raises a little, and she makes an effort to lower it before speaking again. "Why would you do that?"

"She's really sorry about everything. She wishes she could've stopped Cora's curse because she had never wanted it to go that far."

Snow is speechless, amazed that after everything Regina's done, Henry still can't stop giving her new chances.

"I just want to know if my mum is okay", Henry says miserably, and Snow pulls him close, rubbing his back and trying to figure out how to tell him that Emma might not be okay without breaking his heart, but since that's impossible to achieve, she doesn't say anything.

"Where is Regina?"

"She's here in Ellsworth", Henry says, pulling away to look at Snow. "Will you let me go see her?"

"We're going to go together, all three of us", Snow tells him, knowing that if she tries to stop him, he'd go anyway.

* * *

Snow feels ridiculously uncomfortable standing in front of Regina's door, but when Henry looks up at her with a hopeful smile, she finds that she can handles anything.

Regina opens the door wearing sweat pants and a T-shirt and Snow can't help but stare with her mouth open. She can't remember ever seeing her looking so casual, but the second Regina sees Henry, it's like Snow and Charming aren't even there.

"Henry", she whispers, her hand stretching toward him, then falls back to her side when he just looks at her without coming closer. "Come on in", she says after a moment and opens the door wider, going back inside without waiting to see if they would follow. Charming gives Snow a warning look but she shrugs and follows Regina, keeping her hand on Henry's shoulder.

* * *

"Before you even ask, I can't open a portal so you can go after Emma, because I don't know where the curse had sent her", Regina says, her voice growing softer when she looks from Snow to Henry.

"But you can do something", Henry says, his faith in Regina unshakeable.

"Not here", she says softly. "My magic doesn't work outside of Storybrooke."

"So we go back to Storybrooke", Henry says like it's the most obvious thing in the world.

"Is Cora still in Storybrooke?" Snow asks Regina, finding it miraculous that they can be civil with each other so easily.

"Oh she definitely is. She would never risk losing her magic", Regina says bitterly, cutting a piece of pie for Henry. He digs in with gusto, and Snow holds her breath, almost expecting him to fall over, becoming a victim of the sleeping curse again. When it doesn't happen, she catches Regina looking at her with a smug smile, but somehow refrains from commenting on it. It's hard to believe that Regina would never intentionally hurt Henry because all she ever does is hurt everybody else.

"If you go back, can you do it without Cora noticing?" Charming asks, and Regina laughs.

"What makes you think I would go back?"

"You wouldn't? For me?" Henry asks sadly, and Regina's expression changes.

"I would do everything for you, Henry. But if I go back, I might never come back and never see you again", she says, and Snow can see where this is going.

"What do you want in return?" Snow asks Regina directly, reaching for Charming's hand under the table.

"If I go back to figure out what state is Emma in, wherever she is, I want to be a part of Henry's life. Would you like that, Henry?" Regina asks him, and he nods solemnly.

"Find a way to show me my mum, and we can hang out. But I stay with Snow and grandpa", Henry tells her, and Snow tries not to smile, a rush of love for her little smartass making her eyes shine with unshed tears.

"Done", Regina says, and they sit there for a while avoiding each other's eyes and watching Henry eat his pie.

* * *

It feels strange going back to Storybrooke, even if they don't intend to go ever the line. Regina comes in her own car and drives into town, while the three of them sit in Charming's truck next to the town line and wait in heavy silence.

Henry's reading his book again, and Snow is holding onto Charming's hand, her stomach tied into knots because today is the day she finds out what her daughter's fate is. No matter how many times he tells her that Emma's fine, she can't stop imagining all kinds of scary scenarios that make her want to scream and jump into portals that aren't even there anymore.

Regina is back half an hour later, parking her car on the other side of the road and coming out holding a book much like the one Henry's cradling in his arms.

Snow exits the car feeling like a sleepwalker, opening the door for Henry and crossing the road, trying to read Regina's face.

"She's still alive. Both of them are", Regina says, and Snow feels like she's finally able to breathe after a month of suffocating to death.

"Both of them?" Charming asks, and Snow looks at him in surprise.

"You know Hook went after her."

"I hadn't thought they'd be together. Where are they?" Charming asks, and Snow knows that he's worried about Emma being with Hook because they both saw the way he was around Emma, and Charming wouldn't be Charming if he was okay with the possibility of his daughter ending up with a pirate. Snow thinks Hook would be perfect for Emma because he would love her completely and never abandon her, and she guesses that Charming would come around eventually too, if they somehow found a way to bring them back.

Regina hands the book to Snow, bypassing Henry's outstretched hand, and it's Snow's first clue that things are bad for Emma, wherever she is.

"I think you should read it first. The book has about ten chapters so far, and new ones should appear periodically. It's a rather… gory read."

"But she's okay?" Snow asks just to make sure she hadn't heard what she wanted to hear instead of what Regina had said, her stomach clenching painfully.

"She's fine. For now."

"What does that mean?" Charming asks, stepping closer to Regina, and Snow lays her hand on his forearm, stopping him from blowing up.

"Read the book. I'll see you tomorrow at my place, Henry", Regina says, giving Henry a soft smile before getting back into her car and driving away. Snow holds the book tightly, dreading to open it and read about Emma even though that's what they came here for.

Charming drives them back to Ellsworth, and the book is burning Snow's lap, her need to make sure that Emma is fine stronger than her fear, but Henry's in the back seat and for once she's going to trust Regina and not show him what's inside until she's certain it's something her can handle.

* * *

Snow promises Henry she'll come get him as soon as they read the book and watches him drag his feet on the way to his room. As she settles on the couch with Charming, she finally understands how Emma must've felt when she read about her parents in Henry's book. The feeling is surreal to say the least; reading about Emma's adventures and near death experiences and looking at the pictures of her with Hook feels like déjà vu because what the two of them have is true love too, even if they aren't aware of it yet.

Someday they're going to end up just like Snow and Charming, married and with a child of their own, if they survive long enough in that horrible world to figure their feelings out.

The picture on the last page shows Emma and Hook standing in front of their cabin, facing two men with rifles, and Snow looks at Charming, seeing her own desperation reflected in his eyes.

"We need to get them out of there", she says, and Charming nods slowly, still a little out of it because of what they've just read and seen.

"What are we going to tell Henry?" He asks her, and she closes the book gently before she answers him.

"Everything except how the chapter ends, at least not until the new one appears."

* * *

**Review?**


	10. Survival of the Fittest

**Bit of a warning; this chapter is darker than my usual stuff, and contains adult themes such as implied attempted rape (nothing actually happens, but I'm aware that it's a sore subject for some, so...) and murder for the sake of self defense. I think such occurances would be common in a lawless post-apocalyptic world, but I won't fault you if you skip this chapter for personal reasons.  
**

* * *

"Drop the sword honey", the taller of the two men holding her and Killian at gunpoint says, giving her a creepy smile. Both of the men are unkempt, with wild beards and shifty eyes, but they are gripping their weapons like they know how to use them. A chill runs down Emma's spine as she realizes that zombies aren't the greatest danger of this world.

"You too, Stumpy", the other one says, and Emma glances at Killian, who's gritting his teeth and looks like he's about to do something really stupid. Emma drops the sword and moves closer to him, shaking her head a tiny bit, telling him with her eyes to stay put. He throws his sword on the grass and Emma starts breathing again. She tries not to think about bullets piercing flesh but it's hard to do when you have a rifle pointed at you.

"What do you want? We've got food we'd be happy to share with two fine gentlemen such as yourself", Killian says, sarcasm dripping from every word.

"We don't want your food", the creepy one says, pointing with his rifle toward the house. "Inside."

Emma and Killian start backing away slowly, their movements perfectly synchronized.

"Not you, Stumpy", the guy snaps, and Emma grips Killian's hand, her fingers digging into his flesh until he looks at her.

"I'll be okay", she says softly, managing a smile because the fear that's flooding her isn't for herself; it's for him. Nothing they can do to her would hurt more than watching Killian get shot, watching him bleed out in front of her, light going out in his blue eyes until he takes one last breath and leaves her all alone. "Remember the lake", she tells him, and there's understanding in his eyes; the memory of her knocking him out with the compass lets him know that she's got a plan and allows him to let her go.

Emma lets go of Killian's hand and goes into the cabin feeling his eyes following her, but doesn't look back.

* * *

She leads the creep into the kitchen and sits down on the couch, tapping the seat next to her and looking up at him as seductively as she can. Her stomach is turning at the thought of him touching her, but she needs to play this smart and keep her cool.

"You don't really think I'm falling for that", he says, the rifle following her every move.

"You don't really think you're the first one to come here", Emma quips, chuckling. "I do what needs to be done and in return guys like you stay out of our way for at least a month."

"I'm holding the gun here, honey, so I'm the one who calls the shots", he says, but it's clear he's close to believing her.

"True. You could slap me around a bit and then do anything you want with me; God knows you're strong enough, but wouldn't you rather have me pleasure you of my own free will?" She gives him a flirty smile, deliberately avoiding to look at the rifle in his hands.

"Stumpy didn't look all too happy about this."

"And yet he did nothing to stop you", Emma says, somehow managing to sound flippant even though her heart keeps racing. She can't think about Killian now, because if she does, she won't be able to play the role she needs to play to get them out of this alive.

"He can't be any good in the sack, right? You probably don't even let him touch you with his stump", the guy says, and Emma wants to do unspeakable things to him, things that would make him scream and die screaming. Instead, she shrugs and looks at him like he's the greatest guy in the world for noticing her misfortune.

"You read me like a book", she says, hating herself for saying it because Killian is the only person who does that and this sweaty, disgusting human being could have a dozen hands and never touch her the way Killian does with his single hand _or_ stump.

"Alright, let me show you how good sex can be, and later you can decide if you want to come with us, or if we should just kill Stumpy and stay here with you", the creep says, setting down his rifle on the kitchen table. Emma smiles and lies down on the couch, waiting until he's almost on top of her before she kicks with all her might, catching him in the nuts. He cries out in pain and doubles over, and she jumps up on the couch and drives her knee into his face. Before he's got time to recover, she runs around him to the dish rack and spins around with a fork in her hand, driving it deep into the side of his thick neck. She's not scared anymore, she's a little crazy with rage and when he screams she barely acknowledges it. He stumbles around and she grabs the rifle from the table, shooting him in the leg to keep him from coming after her and leaving him bleeding on the floor.

A gunshot rings out from outside the cabin, and it feels like she's trying to run through water, adrenaline flooding her system and blood rushing in her ears, a prayer repeating in her mind: _please not him_.

* * *

Emma opens the cabin door and dives to the floor just in time to avoid getting shot. Before she can aim the rifle at the guy shooting at her, a zombie wraps its arms around him and sinks its teeth into his flesh. As soon as the rifle falls out of his flailing hands Emma runs out of the cabin, dropping to her knees next to Killian, tears blinding her because his grey shirt is red with blood.

"No no no no", she says, wiping at her eyes, trying to see how badly he's hurt.

"Emma, I'm okay", Killian says, sitting up and lifting his shirt to show her that the bullet only clipped his side. The relief she feels can't really be described with words; it's a feeling of such happiness that she laughs out loud, falling across his lap in her haste to hug him. He curses under his breath but returns the hug, holding her so tight he leaves her breathless, but she doesn't care. She doesn't care about the man bleeding to death in the kitchen, or the one getting eaten ten feet away from the two of them, she doesn't care if all the shooting has attracted anybody else's attention, living or dead, because she had thought she'd lost him, and he's still here with her. "What did you do?" He asks her, his warm breath tickling her ear, and she pulls away to look at him before speaking.

"I lied, and he believed me, so I kicked him, stabbed him with a fork and shot him", she says, feeling a bit guilty because she doesn't feel any remorse for her actions.

"You're bloody brilliant", Killian tells her, looking at her the way no man has ever looked at her, acknowledging her strength and resourcefulness, not just her pretty face. Then he pulls her close again, and his voice breaks when he says: "I was on the verge of going after you the entire time."

"I know", she tells him softly, realizing how strong his belief in her must've been to stop him from trying to come to her rescue. "How did you manage to dodge a speeding bullet?" She asks him to distract him, getting up and pulling him to his feet.

"That idiot wasn't exactly quick to react. He heard the shot and it took him a few seconds to figure out what to do, and by then I was already moving. He thought he had actually hit me because I did the fall in a heap and play dead routine, and then you and the zombie showed up. I told you we make quite the team", he tells her and kisses her, and she cups his face in her hands and returns the kiss, but they separate quickly so she can lay the zombie to rest, along with its latest victim.

They pick up the second rifle and head inside the cabin, finding Emma's would be attacker already dead in the kitchen. They pull him out of the cabin along with the rug and close the door, and Killian stands next to the window and keeps an eye on the trail as Emma bandages his side. The bleeding is already stopping and she cleans the wound with liberal doses of hydrogen, making him bite his lip and wince.

"Sorry", she says, still expecting the guilt over what she had done to floor her, but it doesn't come. Maybe it's the fact that this world has no laws, or that she was protecting herself from a disgusting crime, but probably it's because Killian wouldn't have survived the day if she hadn't done what she did when she did it. She can imagine Snow's reaction perfectly; shock at first, then a slow nod because she would understand that you do what you need to do to in order to protect the ones you love.

Emma's hands tremble as she covers Killian's side with a bandage and tapes it in place, trying to tell herself that it's not love yet; you can't love somebody you had only met a few months ago, can you?

Killian looks down at her, his ocean eyes serious when he tells her that he's sorry that she had to take a man's life.

"I would do it again in a heartbeat", she says, pressing a gentle kiss on his stomach next to the bandage, thinking that maybe you can love somebody after only a few months if it's your true love.

* * *

Over the next couple of hours about a dozen zombies stumble out of the woods, and the two of them make quick work of them with their swords. There are three boxes of ammunition in the dead guys' pockets along with a pair of car keys. They bury everyone on the other side of the clearing, away from the well, and follow the trail back to the road, where they find a white pick-up truck. There's food and three gas cans in it, and they hide it in their car for the time being, leaving just enough gas in the truck to drive it to the bridge ten miles away, where they send it tumbling down the steep side of the canyon. It's just a precaution in case the dead guys have friends who are going to come looking for them.

By the time they get back to the cabin it's already dark and they eat in silence, each of them lost in their own thoughts. Killian helps her clean the blood stains from the floor and then goes to take a shower while Emma stands in the kitchen, listening to the sound of running water and watching her hands shake because she can't stop thinking of all the dreadful ways today could've ended for both her and Killian.

By the time he comes out of the shower she's more or less calm and she expertly changes his soggy bandage, then kisses him until her head spins, his arms around her all the comfort she needs. He gives her one of those smiles that make her melt and kisses her forehead, and she disappears into the bathroom, staying under the spray of lukewarm water for a long time, letting it wash away everything bad that has happened and could've happened today.

She figures they are already in hell, so what's one more sin going to hurt?

When she finally comes to bed Killian's already asleep, and she snuggles into his good side, careful not to wake him, looking at his beautiful face and thanking her lucky stars he's okay, silently praying to whomever may be listening not to put them through another day like the one they've had today.

* * *

**Review?**


	11. Love in a Hopeless Place

**I just want to say thank you for all the encouragement and likes, and enjoy all the feels in the new chapter. Next one will probably be up on Saturday.**

* * *

For a while after their run in with now deceased bullies, Killian lets her spend some time hunting alone and she appreciates his willingness to let her come to terms with what she had done in her own way. Still, he keeps telling her that she did the right thing and kisses her every chance he gets, and she's fairly certain that his love is the only reason she never remembers her nightmares.

Even though she had never thought she'd enjoy stalking her prey, being one with the nature and thinking about nothing at all except her arrow finding its target, she finds that she does. But, no matter how much she likes those quiet moments, she likes being with Killian much more and her outings never last for too long; it's like she's got an internal clock that makes her hurry back home after a certain amount of time apart from him, and she's unable to keep a smile off her face as soon as their cabin comes into view.

Living with yourself after you've killed somebody is much easier when you know who you did it for and when that person doesn't fault you for it, giving you even more love and support than he did before.

* * *

Emma wakes to the sound of rain on the tin roof of the cabin, and Killian trailing kisses down her neck. She smiles, her eyes still closed, raising her arms and tangling her fingers in his hair. Her every sense is flooded with him; his smell, the feel of his skin, and the sound of his breathing. As soon as she opens her eyes and meets his ocean blue gaze, they both know that today is the day they finally come together completely, and when he smiles and brings his head down to kiss her she doesn't need air anymore; she's breathing him in, believing for the first time in her life that she can live only on love.

He pulls away and watches her as he sneaks his hand under her shirt, and Emma bites her lip when he cups her breast, his thumb slowly teasing her nipple. She pulls his head down and presses her lips against the stubble on his jaw line, then runs her hands under the edge of his sweatpants and boxers, heat racing through her veins.

Killian tugs at her shirt and she helps him get it off, gasping when his lips close over her nipple, the scruff on his chin feeling divine on her sensitive skin. He smirks at her, the look in his eyes exactly the same as it was when he bandaged her hand up on the beanstalk, tying his scarf around her hand with his teeth. He licks a path to her other breast and she can't wait anymore, she doesn't want to take it slow; she just wants to feel his naked body against hers, right now.

"Too many clothes", she murmurs, gently pushing him away and sliding her hand into his sweatpants, watching as his tongue darts out to wet his lips when her hand closes around him.

She keeps expecting their warning system to start ringing but it doesn't, and she thinks that even if it did, they probably wouldn't hear it over the rain and the sound of their own labored breathing.

"Emma", he grits out her name and wraps her fingers around her wrist, looking at her sternly. "I don't think I'm going to last very long if you keep doing that."

"Okay", she says, letting him go and pulling off his T-shirt. He peels off her pjs slowly, kissing her hip, then her thigh, knee and calf before dropping them off the edge of the bed. Emma makes quick work of his remaining clothes and her panties and he presses his body against hers just so, making her spread her legs wider, her fingers gripping his shoulders. He rolls them over so that she's on top and his hand disappears between them, his fingers driving her a little insane, her hips buckling, her fingers tangling in his chest hair. Breathless little gasps keep coming out of her mouth and he keeps teasing her, driving her almost to the edge and then drawing back until she can't take it anymore. She swats his hand away and leads him inside, their eyes locked together as he slowly enters her, his hand gripping her waist, burning her skin in the most delicious of ways. They move together, finding a rhythm that soon sends them both over the edge, holding onto one another, their cries lost in the sound of the rain.

* * *

They spend the entire day in bed, slowly learning each other's bodies as well as they know their own. It doesn't take long for Emma to find out that he's incredibly ticklish on the right side of his ribs, but not at all on the left, that his biceps feel incredible beneath her fingers, like velvet over steel, and that he tries really, really hard to avoid touching her with his stump. When she brings it up he tells her that he doesn't know what she's talking about, his eyes downcast so that she can only see the curve of his eyelashes. A sudden chill comes over her as she remembers her conversation with the creep, and she places her finger under his chin and tilts his head up to make him look at her.

"You could hear us?" She asks him softly, and he doesn't answer right away, debating whether to keep playing dumb or not.

"It's fine. Frankly, I would be more surprised if you wanted me to touch you with it", he says and Emma honestly can't believe her ears. She hadn't really thought much about his stump, beyond the general regret that Rumpelstiltskin had taken his hand from him, and she certainly never wished he wouldn't touch her with it.

What hurts the most is that he thinks he needs to play it all down, and she wonders if his over the top flirting is just a defense mechanism. All evidence points to the conclusion that she's the first woman since Milah that shared a bed with him, and instead of trying to talk some sense into him, she goes for a more direct approach, tracing her fingers down his arm, then running them gently over the jagged scar on his stump.

"No, Emma, you don't have to-" he trails off in a soft voice, trying to pull his arm away, and Emma wraps her fingers around his stump and holds on until he stops struggling.

"Are you done?" She asks, and he nods slowly, looking at her hand, her fingers gently tracing his skin. "That creep said some pretty idiotic stuff, and the only reason I agreed with him was because I needed to make him relax and let go of the rifle. I don't think any of that, and I don't care if you have one hand or five; I want you all the same. I've always wanted you", she says, bringing her free hand up to caress his face.

"Always?" He asks, a half smile tugging at his gorgeous lips.

"From the second you dropped the woe-is-me-poor-blacksmith act", she admits, grinning. "That was some really bad acting, by the way."

"I thought it was one of my finer performances", he objects, and Emma laughs, then grows serious when she remembers that Snow had believed him at first. She realizes that it's the first time today that she found her thoughts turning toward her family, and she feels guilty. No matter how good Killian makes her feel, she can never let herself forget them, not Snow or David, and especially not Henry.

"I wish we could go back", she says, closing her eyes and picturing Henry, his laughter ringing in her ears.

"Someday we will", he says, and Emma loves him for saying that, for sounding like he really believes it.

* * *

Fall draws to its end and the weather changes, cold wind blowing from the north, but they only make a fire in the fireplace after dark to avoid the smoke giving their location away. Even with the rifles, the last thing they want is more people stumbling over their cabin, and every time Emma thinks about that day, she feels a shiver going down her spine at the thought of facing something like that again.

Even greater problem than people and zombies coming across their cabin poses the quickly decreasing number of cans they have left. The woods around the cabin are full of wildlife, but they won't be able to survive the winter without fruit and vegetables, which means that they need to go look for food right away, before snow covers the roads and forces them to go on foot.

* * *

"We're going to do it quickly, hit one of the Walmarts at the edge of town, take what we need and come back. Won't even take a day", Emma says for the tenth time, still trying to convince herself that it's going to be fine, pacing around the kitchen and wishing she was more like Killian. He approaches their food run like a stroll in the park and she had spent an hour poring over the map of the area and deciding which roads to take.

"Exactly", Killian says, folding the map and getting up from the table. "What's a Walmart again?" He asks her, and Emma smiles, appreciating his effort to ease her tension.

"Do you think we should take the rifles?"

"Definitely not. You saw how many of those buggers firing them attracted last time, and we're practically in the middle of nowhere here."

"You're right", Emma agrees, and they put on their jackets and walk out of the cabin, locking the door and trekking through the woods to the car. He's got his sword and she's got her bow and arrows, and soon they're driving down the road, Emma gripping the steering wheel so tight she's not certain if she'll be able to let it go once they reach their destination.

They pass by a couple of zombies staggering on the side of the road, some deeply ingrained human instinct keeping them from walking in the middle of it, and Emma is grateful that she doesn't have to stop the car and watch Killian take their heads off. She looks at him and marvels at his relaxed pose; he's slouched in his seat, resting his hook on his knee and gazing out the windshield seemingly without a care in the world.

"How can you be so calm?" Emma asks him, and he raises his eyebrow at her.

"If I fell to pieces before every battle, I wouldn't have been a very good Captain to my crew", he says, giving her his best pirate smile.

"That doesn't really help me", Emma says sulkily, turning off the road and into the Walmart parking lot. She shuts off the engine and they sit in the car, waiting to see if anybody attacks them.

"I shall protect you, Emma", he tells her, and Emma leans across the seat to give him a kiss before they exit the car and start toward the store, weapons at the ready.

She knows that it's too much to ask for a nice, zombie-free environment, but she hopes it's just the zombies lurking inside, because recently she's come to the realization that humans are much worse.

* * *

**Review?**


	12. I'll Be Okay

**There's a lot of angst in this chapter, but I hope you trust me by now and know that I'm never going to let anything happen to our precious babies. Enjoy, and thanks for reading/reviewing/following/liking.**

* * *

The store is a mess, with items strewn everywhere and various isles smeared with blood, but it's miraculously empty. They fill four shopping carts and take the food to the car, and as they are filling the fifth Emma starts to relax, thinking that it's just their lucky day.

She should know better by now.

The door to the staff room crashes open violently and zombies come pouring out, dragging their feet and filling the air with the awful smell of decomposing bodies and the sound of hungry moans that make her skin crawl.

They don't waste time with the cart, leaving it where it is and starting back toward the car, just to have their way cut off by about a dozen zombies coming in from the parking lot.

"For such slow creatures, they really do manage to surprise you, don't they?" Killian says, stepping in front of her and kicking the closest zombie, making it stumble back and bring down a few other, the rest climbing over them to get closer. Emma looks toward the car and sees a couple more loitering around it until they notice the commotion at the entrance and start toward them too. "This is going to hell rather quickly", Killian says, and she can practically hear him come up with a plan. She's too busy shooting her arrows left and right to think of something herself.

"Now would be a time for one of your brilliant ideas", she grunts, dropping a zombie and trying to keep her eyes on five more at the same time.

"Step back", he says and sends a shopping cart crashing through the front window, glass raining down like a waterfall, crunching under their feet when they go through the opening. He slows down and turns back toward the store, and Emma stops running, her eyes widening when she realizes what he has in mind.

"I'll draw them out, you get the car and go, and I'll see you at the cabin", he says, backing up slowly, only taking out the closest zombie. It's an incredibly dangerous game he's playing, and Emma just stands there, unable to even entertain the thought of leaving him like this. "Swan, move! We need that food and you need to let me do this!" He yells at her, and she jogs back to him, shooting two of the closest zombies and kissing him. "Trust me", he says with a grin and winks at her before turning back to the approaching horde.

There's a wall separating different lanes of the parking lot so luckily for Killian, the zombies can't really surround him, but it still takes all his skill to keep them from coming close enough to bite.

There are still a few zombies between Emma and the car, but she manages to shoot and duck her way through, fighting the urge to go back to Killian's side with every step.

* * *

All the way back to the cabin Emma alternates between feeling certain that Killian is going to be fine and thinking how she's never going to see him again. It's making her reckless and she almost ends up crashing the car when a zombie stumbles onto the road in front of her. The only thing that saves her is that it's too late for her to try to avoid him, so she hits him head on and just keeps going, glancing in her rearview mirror and taking a deep breath to try and calm her nerves.

She feels so exposed and so alone out here, and she's relieved when she turns onto the road that dead-ends next to the trail to their cabin.

It's been maybe fifteen minutes since she left him behind, and with every new minute that passes she gets more scared. Rationally, she knows that it's going to take him a while to get here, and that he's going to be pissed if she goes back for him, so she busies herself with unloading the car and taking the food to the cabin. She makes five trips between the two, and he still isn't back. Her nerves can't take it anymore so she hides the car with the remaining food as best as she can and starts toward Walmart on foot, desperate and so very, very afraid.

As she walks, she keeps telling herself that he's fine, that she's not going to cry because he is not dead.

Her vision is so blurry she barely sees the road.

* * *

Killian gets cut off from the road and has to go around Walmart and across a field, cutting through the woods and coming up on the other side of the cabin. It takes him a lot longer than it would have if he followed the road, and he's worried about Emma. He reaches the cabin and finds it locked, cold panic filling him at the thought that something might've happened to her on the road.

He's covered in cuts from the branches that kept hitting him in the face, he lost his jacket and it's been hours since he ate anything, but when he reaches the car he forgets everything that ails him. He knows he won't be okay until he finds his beautiful, vexatious girl and makes sure she's intact. He should've known she'd go back for him, and he wishes she had at least taken the car instead of trying to conserve gas.

It takes him a while to uncover the car and his stomach turns when he notices blood on the front bumper, but he doesn't dwell on it, just gets inside and frantically searches for the keys, finally finding them in the glove compartment.

He feels a little nervous driving without Emma there, but he needs to find her and this is the fastest way, so he goes slow until he reaches the main road, and then floors the accelerator, keeping his eyes peeled for a slender figure in red leather jacket.

* * *

Emma dodges zombies that stumble on the road and they keep trailing after her. She's too focused on not falling apart to worry about that, but when one of them comes toward her clutching what looks like Killian's leather jacket in its rotting fingers, she almost loses that fight. Her steps falter and she keeps telling herself that it's not really his jacket; it only looks like it.

The zombie's almost upon her when she finally shakes herself and drives one of her arrows into its eye socket, catching the jacket as it falls out of its fingers.

As soon as she touches it and catches a whiff of Killian's scent her legs give out and she sits in the middle of the road, smoothing the leather and holding it gently in her arms, trying to come up with explanations for it being here that don't involve Killian being dead.

"It's okay, he's okay", she says, not even caring that she's talking to herself. "He's too good with that sword for them to even touch him", she says, then remembers that all it takes is a single bite and curses herself for listening to him when he had told her to go.

Emma buries her nose in the lining of his jacket, and at that very moment she doesn't even care what happens to her next; she just wants this horrible pain to stop, either because he comes back or because she ceases to exist.

Time passes in lurches and that long line of zombies is almost upon her, but before they can reach her she hears a car approaching and jumps to her feet, swaying from a combination of hunger, emotional exhaustion and wild hope.

The car starts slowing down when the driver sees her, and the first thing she notices is that it's their Pontiac, steadily coming closer, narrowly avoiding the zombies. Emma starts walking toward it, Killian's jacket cradled against her chest, her steps lengthening when she realizes it's him in the driver's seat, his eyes so worried even when he grins and stops the car a few feet away from her.

He gets out of the car and Emma sleepwalks into his arms, not saying any of the things she wants to say, just pressing her face against his shoulder and letting him hold her.

* * *

Emma spends the ride home practically in Killian's lap because after spending four hours thinking that she had lost him, she can't stop touching him. It's exactly what she feared; becoming too attached to him to function on her own, although, she admits to herself that nothing would be different if she had insisted on him sleeping on the couch. She would still worry about him, and she would still fall to pieces without him because you can't face zombies with somebody and not care what happens to them.

Especially if you were falling for them even before everything went to hell.

Killian tells her about the roundabout way he took to come back, and she feels ashamed for overreacting like she did, but knows she'd do it again if the circumstances were the same. She tries not to think about all the ways she could lose him in this unforgiving world but a part of her already knows that this is how it's always going to be; a couple of moments of bliss followed by hours of misery.

They reach their trail and Emma starts to get out of the car, but Killian stops her, grasping her hand in his and looking at her for a moment before speaking.

"I need you to promise me something", he says, his blue eyes so intent she feels he's looking right into her soul.

"What?" She breathes, and he glances down at their hands then back at her, giving her a smile that doesn't quite reach his eyes.

"If something ever happens to me-"

"No", Emma cuts him off, shaking her head and pulling her hand from his grasp even though it feels like a punch in her gut to do so. She gets out of the car and starts shoving the food from the back seat into a plastic bag.

Killian follows her out and leans against the car next to her, patiently waiting for her to fill the bag and look at him. She hangs the bag on his hook and starts filling another one, hoping he'll drop the subject if she tries to ignore him.

"Emma, we need to talk about this", he says, laying his hand on her back.

"No we don't", she tells him because she knows exactly what he was about to say.

"Damn it Swan, why do you always have to be so stubborn?!"

Emma pulls her head and shoulders out of the car and tries to glare at him, tries to keep the tears at bay because she's tired of crying, tired of feeling like she's going to die without him.

"What do you want me to say? That if you ever die and leave me here alone, I'll be okay? That I'm going to move on and live, for you? Is that what you would do if I died?" She asks him, wiping away the tears that roll down her cheeks, the lump in her throat almost choking her.

"If you died, I would take my sword and start killing those things until either they're all gone or I am", he tells her, and she smiles faintly through her tears because she can practically see him doing it. He was always good at holding grudges against everybody except her. "But I don't want that for you, and I don't want you to just give up either."

"It's too late, Killian. I lost my parents and I lost Henry, and you're all I've got. You can't expect me to lose you too and go on", she says, her eyes pleading with him to stop making her think about his mortality because it hurts too much.

He opens his mouth to say something, then shakes his head and cups her face with his hand before he presses his lips against hers.

Emma closes her eyes and prays that they won't have their last kiss until they're at least a hundred years old.

* * *

**Review?**


	13. Merry Christmas, Baby

**Here we go, a lot of fluff mixed with a little angst, for a change. I swear I'm not writing all this angst **just** to give you feels; the world they are in is such a bleak place, so I can't have them running around happy all the time. Next chapter is about the Charmings again, and we'll see them come after Emma and Killian in order to bring them back to our world.  
**

* * *

Ever since the curse transported her and Killian to this world, Emma has been religiously keeping a calendar to makes sure they never miss a holiday or anyone's birthday, even though they have no way of knowing if Storybrooke dates and dates in this world even coincide. The calendar, such as it is, says that there's ten days left until Christmas, and also that her period is four days late. Killian is outside making firewood from a tree he felled yesterday, and Emma paces in the kitchen, glancing out every time she passes by the window, watching him swing the axe and trying to figure out what to tell him or should she even tell him anything yet.

Her stomach is tied in knots at the thought of being pregnant here, without any sort of medical attention, not to mention bringing a tiny helpless baby into this world. She tells herself again and again that her period is probably late because of all the stress she'd been under lately, that they were pretty careful on top of her making sure they avoid having sex during her ovulation, but in hindsight, she knows they were pretty stupid, acting like a couple of teenagers. They hadn't started using condoms until two weeks ago and that trip to Walmart, and now she's got yet another thing to worry about on top of everything else that's been going on.

If there wasn't for fifteen inches of snow outside, she's go back to Walmart for a pregnancy test, and then she'd have to tell Killian, and she doesn't want to tell him until she's sure, and she can't be sure until she takes the test, and it's all so frustrating and scary. She wants him to know because she needs him to tell her that it's going to be okay, but she's afraid because there's a possibility he'd be as scared as she is, and she's barely keeping it together now when she doesn't have to worry about him too.

Killian comes into the kitchen with a painter's bucket of wood and sets it by the stove before he goes back to close the door. Emma crosses the kitchen and hugs him, pressing her face against his shoulder, wincing a little at how cold he is from being outside. He hugs her back and sifts his fingers through her hair, and she's reminded again that it's a liability, but she still can't make herself cut it.

"What's wrong?" He asks her, and she pulls back just far enough to look at him.

"I can't just hug you for no reason?" She says, and he smiles, his eyes roaming over her face as if he hadn't seen her for far longer than half an hour.

"'course you can, but this is not that kind of hug", he says, and Emma leans into him and closes her eyes.

"It's nothing. I'm just a little worried about something", she says, and he kisses the top of her head.

"Is it food? Because I thought we had enough to last us through the winter?"

"No, it's not the food", Emma says softly, hoping he'll get it out of her if she keeps being vague.

"Then what? Can I do anything?" He asks, and she smiles to herself, because he had already done something.

"You can't."

"How about you tell me why you don't want to tell me", he says, wrapping her hair around his wrist and gently pulling until she has to look at him.

"Because I don't know how you're going to react", Emma says meekly, and he thinks about her answer for a moment, then shakes his head.

"Whatever it is, we're going to deal with it together", he says, and it's the only promise she needs to hear.

"I'm late. It's just a few days, so it's probably nothing, but I could be pregnant", she says all on one breath, offering him a watery smile. He looks stunned and more worried that she had expected. "I'm sorry… I should have-"

"It's not your fault, lass. I was there too", he cuts her off, wiggling his eyebrows and making her smile even though they are in serious trouble, then leads her to the couch and sits down. Emma drops down beside him and he pulls her closer, running his hand up and down her arm. "This is… bloody scary. I shudder to imagine you giving birth with just me around... what if something goes wrong?" he says, and Emma shakes her head, leaning her head against his shoulder.

"I don't want to bring a baby into this world. It would be horrible to grow up surrounded with zombies and I don't want our children to live like that", she says, trying to block the images of perfect, chubby babies with his blue eyes playing on the kitchen floor while zombies try to break down the door.

"There would be no greater joy than have children with you, as long as it's not here", Killian agrees, and they sit together for a long time, not saying anything else because there's nothing left to say; they can just wait and see what happens.

* * *

With each new day that passes, Emma feels more certain that she is in fact pregnant, and even though it still scares her, she's getting used to the idea. Killian treats her like she's made of glass, and that's a little annoying, but it's nice to have someone who genuinely cares about her. She remembers being pregnant with Henry, how alone she was, how miserable, stuck in jail and knowing all along that she can't keep him.

She wakes up on Christmas Eve day and gets out of bed gingerly because her panties feel soaked and she doesn't want to mess up the bed. Killian is still sleeping and she cleans herself in the bathroom, feeling strangely disappointed. It's still early and cramps hit her pretty hard so she goes back upstairs and crawls into bed.

"Emma?" Killian says, rubbing sleep from his eyes, his sharp eyes noticing that she had changed her pjs.

"I'm not pregnant", she says and as soon as the words are out she starts crying. She's being ridiculous and she knows it, but she can't help how she feels, and right now she's devastated that there's no baby she could watch grow up like she never got to watch Henry. Thinking about him makes her even sadder and on top of that it feels like her stomach is being ripped apart, so it's really no wonder she's this emotional.

Killian wraps his arms around her from behind, his hand going under her shirt and settling over her stomach, its warmth making the pain easier to take.

"It wasn't the right time for our baby to come, but someday it will be", he tells her, kissing her cheek, and Emma crosses her arms over his, nestling closer. The more she gets to know him, the more she is amazed at how gentle and loving he can be when he's not cutting down zombies. It was always shining though when they were alone, but without Rumpelstiltskin anywhere in the picture, Killian seems truer to his real self, like he's finally at peace, which is ironic considering what kind of world this is, but also kind of poetic.

"Maybe when we find a ship we'll also find a deserted island just for the two of us, and then we can have a baby", Emma says wistfully, running her fingers over his stump. He has finally given up on trying to pull it away and despite the zombies and the fact that it feels that they're the last people on Earth, for the first time since they got here she thinks that they're going to be okay.

"If a deserted island is what you wish to have, then I shall find it for you", he says, and Emma turns in his arms, looks into his eyes and tells him she loves him. She had promised herself she'd wait until he said it first, in case he's not ready to say it back yet, but she can't wait anymore; she needs him to know how she feels.

"I love you too", he says, his eyes crinkling at the corners when he smiles, and she can almost hear what's he thinking: _it's about bloody time_.

* * *

She falls asleep and wakes up at noon, coming downstairs to find a tree in the corner of the kitchen. Killian looks at her sheepishly and a smile tugs at her lips because if there was anything that could cheer her up it's this; an unexpected piece of normality in an abnormal world.

Killian tells her that he had planned using some of the smaller weapons from the basement as decorations and she nearly doubles over laughing. She rummages through the closet and pulls out the decorations she had hid behind the food when they got back from Walmart because she didn't want him to think her foolish for thinking about Christmas when they were still facing starvation.

"That would've been one pretty bizarre looking tree, don't you think?" She tells him, pointing to one of the taller branches and handing him a red bow to clip on it as she hangs a golden ball on the branch in front of her.

"I wasn't aware that there was any alternative when I came up with it", he says and she grins, wrapping her arms around his waist and pressing her cheek against his shoulder. She acknowledges the fact that in all those movies she used to watch that dealt with zombie outbreaks, the survivors had it so much worse than they do, and she's grateful for their little cabin and being able to hold him like this.

They decorate the tree and eat chocolate while she tells him about the past year in Storybrooke, and she manages to describe Henry's attempts at making her believe in the curse without her voice breaking when she says his name.

* * *

Killian takes her outside just before midnight and they take a walk around the cabin, Emma's hand securely nestled in his. She looks up at him with a smile, snowflakes gently falling out of a darkened sky and catching on her eyelashes, feeling a surge of such happiness and love it takes her breath away.

They stay in the light coming from the cabin just in case any zombies stumble out of the woods, even though they hadn't seen any since the first snow and Killian's got a theory that they freeze during the winter. It makes sense, but it's also scary because one of them could be under all this snow and they wouldn't know.

"Thanks", she says and pulls him close, his lips cold but so very inviting when she kisses him.

"For what?" He asks, feigning ignorance.

"For being you. And for the tree", she says, cupping his face and standing up on tiptoes to kiss him again.

"You're welcome for the tree, and as for the other one, it's just how I am, I really can't help it", he says with a grin and she hits him playfully.

"Yeah, you're fabulous."

"Pretty much", he says, and Emma laughs, the snow muffling the sound as it keeps falling down around them. "Merry Christmas, darling."

"Merry Christmas", Emma says, shrieking when he picks her up and twirls her around, holding onto him as tight as she can. She knows at that moment that they were always meant to end up this close, and even if it would've taken them much longer if they had stayed in Storybrooke, they would have still found their way to each other eventually.

* * *

**Review?**


	14. Yet Another Adventure

**Everybody's been asking about Charmings, and here they are, on their way to find Emma and Hook and bring them back... it's going to take a while, though, because we all want this fic to go on for a while, right?  
**

* * *

_Ellsworth, Maine_

Henry bursts into the apartment and Snow nearly drops the phone wedged between her cheek and shoulder because she's ironing Charming's shirts and talking to Red at the same time.

"Let me call you back, Henry's just came in", she says and listens to Red's reply before they hang up and she can focus on Henry's flushed cheeks and a wide grin stretching his lips.

"She's going to do it!" He exclaims, taking off his jacket and practically bouncing in place from excitement.

"Slow down, Henry. Who's going to do what?"

"Regina talked Cora into opening the portal that took mum! We can go after her and bring her and Killian back", Henry tells her, his excitement rising with each word he says.

"I need to go see Regina", Snow says dazedly as Charming comes in from the kitchen.

"What's going on?"

"We're going to save mum!"

Charming looks from Henry to Snow and a slow hopeful smile spreads across his lips. Snow knows that when it comes to Regina, things can't be this simple.

* * *

"You want Henry to stay with you while Charming and I go through the portal to find Emma?" Snow asks incredulously, glaring at Regina, who's sitting at the table across from them with a serene expression on her face.

"Were you thinking about taking Henry with you? To a world infested with zombies and violent people?"

"Of course not, but-"

"The portal stays closed unless Henry comes back to live with me. And after you're back, you can't ever shut me out of his life again", Regina says, and Snow glances at Charming, confused because he looks to be on the verge of agreeing to Regina's terms.

"You're asking us to trust you knowing that it would be so easy for you to send us in there and slam the door behind us so that you can keep Henry forever!" Snow says, and Regina shrugs.

"I could do that, but I won't. We make a deal, I stick to it. And besides, Henry would never forgive me if I did that to you."

"And what if we die in there and never come back?"

"That's your problem", Regina says, and Snow realizes it's exactly what she's hoping it would happen, and she's not even trying to hide it.

"Snow", Charming says softly, tugging at her hand until she looks at him. "This is our only chance for rescuing Emma. You've seen the book; you know how hard it is for Emma being away from us, not to mention fighting for her life nearly every day."

Snow contemplates his words for a moment, and when it's clear that there's no alternative, she agrees, albeit reluctantly.

"We're going to need two bodies. Isn't that how it works? Four in and four out?" She asks Regina, and feels a petty sort of satisfaction at Regina's impressed expression.

"Very good, Snow. I'll handle the bodies part, you two make sure you stock up on weapons, food and some form of transportation. I think David's truck will be fine."

"Wait. We're going to drive a truck through a portal?" Charming asks, and Regina chuckles.

"You planned on walking a hundred miles to their cabin? By the time you get there they might already be gone."

"Just get us there, and then we're going to worry about finding Emma", Charming says darkly, and Snow can't shake an awful feeling that they're making an irreversible mistake.

* * *

A week later they are ready to go and Snow feels both anxious and excited. She tries to think about their trip as just another adventure, but then she remembers that it's their daughter's life on the line, and she starts worrying again. What she fears the most is the possibility of her and Charming reaching the cabin and finding it empty, or worse.

Henry and Charming don't have that kind of problems. They're both convinced that everything is going to work out fine, that Emma and Hook are going to stay where they were in the last chapter of Henry's book, and that all of them will return unscathed. Snow wishes she could believe it too, but there are just too many things that could go wrong, starting from the beginning of their journey, because she still can't bring herself to trust Regina completely.

They come to the town line and Cora meets them, smiling her creepy smile, making Snow realizes that she'd rather fight some zombies than talk to her. There are two dead bodies in the back seat of Regina's car that Charming puts in the back of the truck, and Snow turns Henry away, feeling like a hypocrite because she can't bring herself to ask Regina who those people were and how they died.

"So, how are we doing this?" Charming asks, feigning nonchalance, and they all turn toward Cora expectantly.

"Since you two can't cross the line without risking losing your memories, I'll open the portal at the line, and all you need to do is drive through it", Cora says, and Henry looks up at Snow, for the first time showing any uncertainty.

"Give us a moment", Snow says to Cora and wraps her arms around Henry, wishing there was another way to do this that wouldn't include leaving him here with Regina. "We're going to be as quick about it as we can."

"Just bring them back", Henry says and Snow smiles, because they both understand that there wouldn't be bringing Emma back without Hook. Charming still can't wrap his mind around the fact that his daughter fell in love with a pirate, and Snow finds it funny because she still remembers the little pirate figurine he had put in Emma's nursery to watch over her crib so many years ago.

"We will", Snow says and kisses the top of Henry's head, then steps back as Charming kneels in front of him and tells him not to worry and to be good while they're gone.

"Soon you're going to read about the two of us too in that book of yours", Charming says and Henry steps into his arms, clinging to him for only a moment before letting him go and pretending to be tough.

"One more thing", Cora says, and Snow comes closer to the town line, taking a piece of paper from her and frowning at the words written on it.

"What's this?"

"That's a spell for opening a portal from your side, when you decide to come back. But keep in mind that if you don't use it in ninety days, it's going to expire."

"Why not keep the portal open the entire time?" Charming asks, coming to stand beside Snow.

"And let the zombies stumble into Storybrooke? Silly prince", Cora says, laughing at him.

"And the time limit is to make sure we have an even tougher job of coming back", Snow says, narrowing her eyes at Regina who's holding Henry's hand and smiling down at him, oblivious to the rest of the world.

"Every magic has its limits, and its price", Cora says pointedly.

"Let's go", Charming tells Snow and shoots Cora a dirty look.

"Keep in mind that this is the only chance you have at getting your daughter back. If you don't succeed, there won't be another time, because I'm tempting fate as it is, opening this particular portal for the second and third time", Cora tells them, and there's a weird quality to her voice, making Snow think that she can somehow understand how they feel.

After Snow and Charming get into the truck, Cora opens the portal and they drive through it holding hands, both hoping that for once, Regina keeps their promise and they don't end up stuck.

Snow thinks that if they do, at least they will be with Emma, but then she remembers Henry and knows that they have to come back, no matter what it takes.

* * *

_Zombieland_

The portal drops them in the middle of a swarm of zombies, the truck flattening a few of them, and Charming grabs the wheel with both hands, mowing down everything in their path. Snow is glad he had installed a ram on it in anticipation of just such occasion, but soon they run out of clear road and are forced to stop, zombies surrounding them on all sides.

This isn't how their rescue mission was supposed to go, but it's still something they had planned for, so Charming takes his gun and she takes her bow and arrows before they climb up on the roof through a hatch in the cabin. Time slows and moves faster at the same time, and when they're finished, there are bodies strewn all around them.

Charming pulls her closer and she leans into him, looking around, the urgency to get out of here rising inside her with each passing second.

"This is worse than it had seemed in Henry's book", he says softly, as if he can't quite believe his eyes.

"It doesn't matter. It's going to take longer, but we're going to find our daughter, just like we always find each other", Snow tells him, and they get back into the truck. Charming drives in reverse, Snow wincing every time the tire goes over somebody, until they reach the end of the street. They have a haphazardly drawn map made from the clues from Henry's book, but most of the roads are blocked and she can already see that it's going to take some time to get out of the city.

She watches silently as Charming carefully removes the bodies from the back seat and then gets back into the car, refusing to meet her eyes, his jaw clenched because this is going against everything he believes in. It's just another proof of how far they would go for Emma.

They spend the first night in an abandoned apartment building, and Snow barely sleeps a wink. No matter how horrible things had seemed when they read about it in Henry's book, the reality is much worse. She thinks about Emma and prays that she's safe in her little cabin, wrapped up in Hook's arms and dreaming of something beautiful.

* * *

It takes them a week to get out of the city because they don't want to abandon the car and leave behind all the food, water, gas and weapons they had brought with them. It gives them an advantage Emma and Hook hadn't had when they first came here; they don't have to look through houses and apartment buildings for provisions, beyond checking them out for zombies when they decide to spend the night in one of them.

Only twenty miles outside of the city they come to a road covered in snow, and ten miles after that it's impossible to go forward, the snow too deep even for the truck. The houses here are miles away from each other, so they go back until they find one and settle in, having no other choice than to wait until the snow melts and the roads become clear again.

It's hard being stuck waiting like this, so close to their child and yet so far, depending on nature and trying to keep believing that everything will turn out alright.

"They are still in that cabin", Charming tells her every night when they go to bed, and she nods, having no other choice but to keep hoping that he's right. If Emma and Hook leave the cabin before her and Charming reach it, they are never going to find them again, and she doesn't even want to think about going back to Henry without his mother being with her.

Snow scoots closer to Charming and closes her eyes, praying for Emma to stay put.

* * *

**Review?**


	15. Family

**The first draft is finished! I just have to edit and post from now on,** **so you can expect a new chapter every two days from now on. Also, this one is a bit of a gamechanger, and you'll get why right away if you've read the last chapter carefully. *ducks for cover***

* * *

The snow finally melts a couple of weeks after New Year, and even though they have enough food to last them until spring if they're careful, they decide to make another trip to Walmart while the weather is still cold. It makes the zombies even slower than usual and such an opportunity is too good to miss. Emma knows that they won't be able to do that forever, because eventually the expiration dates will pass, and they will have to find a way to grow their own vegetables.

It takes about an hour to get the car started and Emma drives slowly because there's ice on the roads and they aren't in any hurry. Killian's telling her a story about his pirating days and his eyes sparkle with mischief, making him look so young and even more beautiful than usual.

When they reach Walmart pale winter sun is shining down and everything seems quiet, but this time they know better than to just go in and start taking things off the shelves. First they go around the building and kill a couple of zombies, then they open every door inside and get rid of the rest. There's still a chance one or two of them will come to them by the time they're done, but hopefully they won't find themselves surrounded like they did the last time they were here.

Since it's only mid-morning, Emma doesn't rush, focusing on the expiration dates and taking the items that are close to them first, worry gnawing at her stomach because most of the items she comes across expire sometime this year. It scares her because she doesn't know anything about gardening, and since it seems she's going to have to learn, she takes a few books on the subject, shrugging at Killian's raised eyebrows.

"Just some light reading", she says, and he adds a couple more for good measure before they go deeper into the store.

After a few hours of carting things to their car, they sit at a garden swing and eat a couple of power bars for lunch, looking at an inflatable pool that Killian can't quite grasp the purpose of.

"But what's it for?" He demands, and Emma smiles at his confused expression, ready to spend however long it takes to explain it to him until he gets it.

"It's mainly for children, so they can have fun in the summer."

"But it's so small! They wouldn't even be able to make two strokes in it!"

"Kids love splashing around and playing with their rubber toys", Emma says, thinking about Henry, wishing she had seen him when he was still small enough to fit into kiddy pools.

"So take them to the ocean", Killian says like it's the most obvious thing in the world.

"Ocean can be dangerous. This way, you don't have to watch them so closely", Emma says, and he thinks about her words for a while before responding.

"If we had a kid, I would never let him out of my sight. Or her."

"I know", Emma says softly and entwines her fingers with his, trying not to think about the curse as a blessing because it took her away from Henry, but at the same time it gave her a chance with Killian, and she can't help be grateful for that. She loves being in love, she loves how fluttery it makes her feel, how blessed to have him here with her like this, and even if she worries about losing him, she can honestly say that she wouldn't give up this feeling even if it meant she wouldn't have to worry about anything ever again.

* * *

Emma pulls out of the Walmart parking lot and starts toward home, but after barely three miles she has to stop because the road is half-blocked by a flipped-over car. They exit their car carefully, glancing around for any sign of either people or zombies, but nothing moves.

Then she hears the sound of a child crying, and she races around the car, dropping to her knees and looking inside. The driver is half in half out, his head hanging at an awkward angle to his body, and Emma moves toward the back seat on her hands and knees, slipping on blood that pools under the car. She's distantly aware that Killian is standing above her, keeping an eye on their surroundings, but most of her attention is focused on the little girl that's hanging upside down from the car seat.

"Make her stop, love, before she attracts more of these gits", Killian says, moving away, and judging by the sound of heads rolling, the attention is already on them.

"It's okay", Emma says, carefully extracting the girl from the straps and taking her out of the car. It's difficult to say how old she is because she's small and thin, but Emma guesses she can't be older than two and a half, maybe three. When Emma pulls her close, her small fists twist in Emma's hair, her crying growing even louder than before. "Shhhh", Emma coos, rubbing her back and standing up with her, looking at Killian, who had made short work of the zombies and is now walking around the car, trying to figure out how to get it off the road so that they can pass. Their eyes meet and she knows even before he tells her that there's no way to move the car.

Emma walks toward him and slowly pries the wailing girl away from her, holding her out for him to take.

"What- What are you doing?" He asks, quickly taking off his hook and putting it in his pocket before taking her. Emma opens her mouth to answer him, but she's too mesmerized with the scene before her, because as soon as the girl leaves her arms and Killian settles her against his hip, she stops crying. That tiny mouth that was making such a lot of noise just a second before stretches into a grin and she frames Killian's face with her tiny hands, saying just one word: "Pretty."

If the entire situation wasn't so tragic, Emma would laugh at the look on Killian's face, she would stand there frozen forever, looking at him holding the girl with such tenderness and a smile that makes her eyes water, but there's no time for any of that.

"What's your name, little lady?" She hears him asking, and goes back into the driver's seat of their car just as the girl replies: "Lily. What's your name?"

She starts the car and turns into the field next to the road, knowing that there's a pretty good chance it's going to get stuck there, but it's either that or they leave it behind. This way at least there's a chance she's going to be able to drive it around the overturned car that's blocking the road and they'd be able to keep both the Pontiac and everything they took from Walmart.

Killian gets out of the way and keeps Lily angled away from the dead body that probably used to be her father. When Emma manages to drive the car back on the road, she releases the breath she'd been holding and opens the passenger door for Killian. He gets in and settles Lily in his lap, the look in his stormy eyes when he looks at Emma telling her what she already knows; they are taking Lily home and they are not leaving any kind of message about their whereabouts behind.

Emma rummages through the other car and takes everything that belongs to Lily, moving quickly because there are about a dozen zombies moving steadily closer from the field. She has to kill the two quickest ones but by now it's like an afterthought, swing the sword and watch the heads roll.

When she's certain there's nothing left, Emma gets back behind the wheel and even though she knows it's a horrible way to get their baby, it feels like divine intervention, and when Killian lays his hand on hers on the gear shift and squeezes her fingers, it's clear he feels the same way.

* * *

They reach the end of the road and Lily looks around, asking for her daddy, and neither Killian nor Emma know what to tell her and how to deal with this.

"Your daddy had to go away, but we're going to take real good care of you", Emma finally finds the words, brushing springy locks of dark hair off Lily's forehead. She looks at Emma for a long time, her little face crumpled like she's trying her best not to cry and Emma realizes that this little girl is already tougher than she ever was.

"Are you my mommy, then? Daddy promised she comes back someday", Lily says, such hope shining in her eyes that Emma can't bring herself to tell her the truth, tell her that she's never going to see either of her parents again.

"I'll be your mommy", Emma chokes out past the lump in her throat, wiping at her eyes and taking Lily from Killian and hugging her close, Killian's hand on her knee telling her that she's not alone in this and that everything will be alright.

She remembers how reluctant she'd been to be a mother to Henry at first and feels guilty that she's jumping at the opportunity now, even though she knows there's no one else around to take her place. Even though she knows that Lily is never going to fill that Henry-shaped hole in her heart, she might make it smaller and give Emma an opportunity to experience everything she didn't get to with Henry, and that can't be a bad thing.

"Gotta go pee now", Lily says after three seconds and declares bonding time officially over, making Emma laugh through her tears. She looks at Killian and pulls him in for a kiss before they exit the car and he starts unloading Lily's bags while Emma takes her to the bathroom behind a tree.

* * *

They bring Lily and her stuff to the cabin first, and then Emma stays behind with her while Killian makes a few more trips between the two.

Lily's bags are filled with some clothes and a blanket, about a dozen bottles of baby food, a stuffed elephant, and only one spare pair of shoes. It's clear that they're going to have to go back to Walmart, because Emma is pretty sure power bars aren't meant for children and most of the dates on the baby food have already expired. She can only imagine how desperate Lily's father had to have been to reach Walmart and find more food for her that wasn't meant for babies.

Emma shakes her head and makes herself block those thoughts, opening a can of peaches and offering one to Lily. She looks at it and shakes her head vehemently, curls flying around her face.

"You've never tried a peach?" Emma asks, feigning surprise. "But it's so good", she says, biting into it and closing her eyes because it really is good. Lily reaches into the can and hunts around for one and Emma helps her, watching as she bites it and then closes her eyes, imitating Emma's reaction. "You like it?"

"It's tasty", Lily says, and Emma sits with her in the kitchen, watching her eat two more before she states that her tummy is full.

By the time Killian comes back with the last load before lunch, Lily is asleep in Emma's arms. She doesn't want to get up and risk waking her, but the chair is uncomfortable and she's grateful when Killian settles down the plastic bags and carefully takes Lily from her before he carries her upstairs. Emma opens two cans of tuna and takes the toast bread out of the cupboard above the stove, arranging it on two plates and bringing them with her when she follows him, careful to avoid the creaky fourth step.

They eat in silence and then lay down on the bed on either side of Lily, watching her sleep, trying to figure out how to raise a girl that already feels like their own in the middle of a zombie apocalypse.

* * *

**Review?**


	16. Raising Lily

**I'm glad you guys like Lily and her interaction with Killian and Emma, even though she messes up Snow's and Charming's plan. As always, thanks for reading and reviewing, and have some more daddy!Killian feels.**

* * *

Lily wakes up around 6 am and the first thing she asks is if her daddy is back yet. Emma looks at Killian for help because she doesn't know what to tell her. It's obvious that Lily doesn't understand that her father is dead and that he's not coming back, and Emma can't bring herself to try and explain it to her.

"Not yet, little love", Killian says softly, then picks her up from the bed and holds her in the air above him while she giggles with delight.

"I'm flying!" Lily shrieks, kicking with her feet, and Killian glances at Emma for approval.

"That's your tactic? Distraction?"

"It's either that or we tell her he's D.E.A.D", he says, and Emma pulls down the leg of Lily's pjs, knowing that he's right but still feeling bad about the whole situation.

Killian settles Lily against his chest and they both look at Emma, and she gets a little overwhelmed because this feels so natural, like it was meant to be from the start.

"I'm going hunting", she blurts out, presses her lips against Killian's and jumps out of bed.

"Emma, what-" he calls after her, but she cuts him off.

"I'll be back as quickly as I can. Lily's food is still on the table; just give her one of the bottles of baby food."

With that, she races downstairs, puts on her boots and jacket, picks up her bow and arrows and leaves.

* * *

"I guess it's just you and me, sweetheart", Killian says, getting up with a sigh and setting Lily on her feet. He offers her his hand and she takes it, and he leads her toward the stairs leading to the kitchen.

"Sweet-hart", Lily says and giggles, jumping from one step to the next, holding onto his hand with both of hers. "Where did mommy go?" She asks him when they finally get downstairs, looking around like she expects Emma to jump out from under the couch or table.

"Mommy went to catch our lunch." _And try to figure out how to deal with her emotions_. He understands that Emma needs a little time to herself, and that she's conflicted because she misses Henry and Lily isn't hers but in his opinion this is exactly what she needs. Although, having Lily here means that they can't leave, and Emma's dream of finding a deserted island won't be coming true anytime soon. Going out on the road with a baby would end in tragedy, and even though it's been less than twenty-four hours since they've found Lily, he already feels a ridiculous amount of protectiveness for her.

Killian settles Lily on the kitchen table and opens one of the bottles, taking a bite of the food to make sure it's still good, even though the date indicates that it is.

"Open up", he says and guides the spoon toward Lily's mouth, which stays firmly closed.

"Lily eats alone", she tells him seriously, giving him a look that makes it hard not to laugh. He hands her the spoon and she eats slowly, all of the food finding its way to her mouth.

"How old are you, darling?" He asks her when she's done, and she holds up two fingers, swinging her legs.

"My birthday is soon, and then I'm gonna be three! How old are you?" She asks him, and he smiles.

"Thirty-one. I've been thirty-one for a long time", he says wistfully, and Lily gives him an adorable frown that scrunches up her little face.

"What?"

"Forget it. Do you want to help me make you a bed out of that couch?" He asks her, pointing over his shoulder.

"Okay", Lily says and they spend the morning doing just that.

* * *

Emma wanders around the forest for what feels like hours, but it's really just one. She misses a deer and a few geese, and she can't stop thinking about horrible ways in which she could lose Killian or Lily or both. When she thinks about the past couple of months, she doesn't see it as running for her life with Killian, it's more like one miracle after another, and that means that pretty soon, they're going to run out of them.

The reason she went out here was to try and plan ahead, to think about everything she'll have to take on the next run to Walmart, but she can't focus on anything for more than two seconds. Thoughts are swirling in her head too fast, and when she misses another goose, she gives up and goes home.

"I wish I could talk to you, mom", she says, leaning against a tree and looking at the cabin through the trees for a while, still not ready to go inside. If Snow were here, she'd tell her to give all her love to Lily because Henry is too far away to receive it anyway, and she decides it's exactly what she's going to do.

She enters the cabin and drops her bow next to the door, looking around for Lily and Killian, frowning when she realizes that couch is no longer in the kitchen. Killian comes downstairs and her frown is instantly gone, her lips stretching into a hesitant smile.

"You're back", he says, his eyes searching hers, and when she nods that's it; he understands her completely without her having to say anything.

"Where's the couch?"

"Upstairs."

"Why?"

"Lily needed a bed. Unless you wanted her to sleep with us every night…" He trails off, and Emma crosses the kitchen and wraps her arms around him.

"I'm so glad you're here", she tells him, and he kisses her, then pulls away to look at her, his blue eyes steady on hers.

"Everything is going to be just fine", he tells her and she kisses his cheek before moving past him to see what he did with the couch.

Lily sits on her bed, talking to her stuffed elephant who's got a bandage wrapped around his leg. The couch is half its original size, the rest of it in parts next to their bed, and before Emma can say anything, Lily looks up and flings herself at her, wrapping her arms around Emma's legs.

"Mommy! Look what me and Killy did!"

Emma picks up Lily and tries really hard not to laugh at her pet name for Killian, but to her surprise he just smiles and it's clear that Lily already has him wrapped around her little finger.

"What's wrong with your elephant?" Emma asks and sits down on the bed with Lily in her lap.

"Steve is sick. He got bitten, so he might die", Lily says, and then out of nowhere she starts crying, crawling out of Emma's lap and laying down next to Steve the elephant.

"Steve isn't dying, little love. We put a magical plant on his leg, remember?" Killian tells her and kneels next to the bed.

"You promise?" Lily asks, wiping her eyes and sniffling a little.

"I promise", Killian says solemnly, and Lily sits up and blows him a loud air kiss, and he smiles, tickling her chin until she giggles.

Emma looks at them and thinks that this is everything she had been missing in her life, wishing she could've had it in Storybrooke.

* * *

It doesn't take them long to fall into a comfortable rhythm; they eat breakfast together, Emma goes hunting while Killian keeps an eye on Lily, and after lunch she takes her for a walk around the cabin while Killian reads the books about gardening. They bath Lily together and tell her stories until she's asleep, and then they go back to the kitchen and fight in hushed voices because they both want to go back to Walmart and neither wants to relent and let the other one go.

"You wouldn't even know what to take!" Emma says, and she feels bad for saying it because they both know that's not why she wants to go.

"Make me a list, then", he says, and she grits her teeth and tries not to explode because she doesn't want to wake Lily.

"Why can't you just let me go?" Emma asks him, but she knows the answer to that already, since it's the same reason she doesn't want to let him go.

"Because Lily thinks you're her mother", he says softly, and Emma's eyes widen comically, all the fight going out of her in a heartbeat. That's not what she expected him to say.

"What? I thought-"

"I love you, Emma, and I can't even think about life without you, but Lily _needs_ you. It's enough that you have to go hunting because I can't do it with one hand", he says, and Emma shakes her head, coming closer to him.

"You can't think that she wouldn't be devastated if you left us alone." Emma can't even bring herself to say _if you die_. Lily keeps asking about her father and Emma finds it painful enough; if Killian left and never came back Emma can't even think about dealing with Lily asking about him on top of trying to hold herself together.

"Every time you go hunting, she keeps asking when you're coming back", he says, laying his hand on her shoulder and massaging the bunched muscles. Emma makes an effort to relax, taking a deep breath before she speaks.

"Last time you were at Walmart alone were the worst couple of hours of my life, and now you're asking me to go through that again."

"We can't both go because someone needs to watch Lily, and you can't go because she needs you more than she needs me, so that leaves only one option", he says, and Emma shakes his hand off and turns her back on him.

"What if we wait for a while?" She asks him, her voice small.

"Lily needs food appropriate for her age. That baby food her father was feeding her is the reason she's so small, and I can't let her get sick just because you're worried about me."

"How come you can be worried about me and I can't be worried about you?"

"Because I have centuries of experience. You're bloody good with a sword, but I'm better, and I'm used to fighting multiple opponents." He says, clearly exasperated with her even though his voice is barely above a whisper.

"Not opponents who are trying to eat you. All it takes is one bite and you're gone", she says, rushing to get it all out, all the while knowing that it's a lost cause.

"No one's biting me except you, darling, trust me", he says and kisses her neck, his arms wrapping around her waist and making her lean against his chest. Emma stares out into the darkness beyond the kitchen window for a while, then turns around and looks up at him, running her knuckles over the side of his face, her insides tied in a knot because no matter what he says, she can't let him go.

"I trust you", she tells him, and hopes he can't read her intentions in her kiss.

They make love in silence, and even though Emma doesn't doubt her abilities, there's still a level of desperation in the way she pulls him closer, in the way she kisses him until she's breathless and runs her tongue over his skin, tasting him on her lips, his scent catching on her skin.

She lays awake in the circle of his arms until the pale light of dawn starts filling the room, and then she gets up slowly, kisses him one more time and leaves without turning back, without even looking at Lily because it's the only way she can do what she has to.

* * *

**Review?**


	17. Supergirl

**Have some more daddy!Killian feels to make it easier to deal with Hook's absence from yet another episode. Before we go on with the story, I feel the need to stress again that English isn't my native language and that the comma goes outside the quotation marks in Croatian, and since I've been writing like that for 15+ years I simply can't switch to the other way. I hope it's something you can look past because I would hate to lose any of you over it. Enjoy the new chapter; there are just 7 more left (plus the epilogue) after this one. **

* * *

Emma turns left instead of right to avoid the blocked road, even though she's not sure how much longer this route to Walmart is. She hopes for the best and drives carefully, pulling to a stop in front of a gas station that's located next to the crossroads, roads branching toward the cabin, Walmart and the city. She stays in the car and waits for a while, but nothing moves so she guesses it's fairly safe to get out of the car and fill up the tank. The fact that there's still gas left for her to do so makes her think that there's someone watching over her and Killian, because since they've been here they rarely had to go without anything; every time their supplies were running low, they'd somehow stumble over new ones.

Emma decides to look inside the station while she's here and carefully pushes the door open, pausing in the doorway because it's dark inside, dirty windows blocking almost all the light coming from outside.

Before she can cross the threshold she hears a growl from the depth of the station, answered with another one from behind her, and she slams the door closed, turns, and finds herself facing six zombies. Every time something like this happens she curses herself for forgetting that despite being really slow, these creatures seem to have a knack for coming out of nowhere.

Emma pulls out her sword from its scabbard and starts forward just as the zombies from the inside of the store burst through the door and in seconds she's virtually surrounded. And yet, there's no fear. She moves in a circle and tries to keep her eyes on every zombie at once, stabbing and kicking and thinking only about Killian, wishing she could kiss him goodbye.

* * *

Lily drapes herself over Killian's chest, poking him in the ribs with her tiny finger until he opens his eyes and looks at her.

"Mommy went away without saying goodbye", she says, and Killian glances at Emma's side of the bed, fighting the urge to curse in front of Lily because he knows exactly where Emma went. "Don't be sad, Killy", Lily tells him, and wraps her arms around him before speaking again. "Mommy always comes back."

Killian runs his hand up and down Lily's back and prays that she's right. He's so angry at Emma, and even angrier at himself for not anticipating this, for not doing exactly what she did. She keeps besting him and he never sees it coming because he loves her so much and it's seriously messing up his judgment.

"That's right, little love. She always comes back", he says, hoping that he's not somehow jinxing Emma by saying it out loud.

* * *

Before any of the zombies gets close enough to bite her, a car turns into the parking lot and three people jump out of it guns blazing, zombies hitting the ground around Emma until there's only one left, which she promptly beheads. She keeps the sword up even though it's not much help against the guns, and they all stand like that for a moment, accessing each other.

The group that came to her rescue consists of two guys and a woman, and they are looking at Emma like they can't believe they're seeing another live person. She guesses they are all in their forties, and there's a certain resemblance between them that could mean they're at least distant cousins, if not siblings.

"Weapons down", the man closest to Emma says and everybody holsters their guns, while Emma keeps standing there with her sword up, feeling exposed and more afraid than she did when she was surrounded with zombies, waiting for that fatal bite to come. She's already putting a story together in her head, knowing that she won't tell them about Killian, Lily and their cabin no matter what they say and no matter what they do to her.

"You can put the sword down, honey, we're not going to hurt you", the woman says, coming closer slowly, as if Emma might be a wild thing ready to attack for no reason at all. Reluctantly, Emma lowers the sword but keeps it in her hand by her side, watching them from under her lashes.

"I'm Claire, and these two are Tom and Mike", the woman says, stopping a feet away from Emma. "What's your name, honey?"

"Emma", she says, still on guard, thinking about the last time she saw living people and how that one went.

"Where are you headed?" Tom asks, giving her a smile that seems sincere, but she knows she won't be able to relax until she's a long way away from them.

"Nowhere in particular", Emma says, willing them to believe her, to take the gas and just go back on the road in the direction they were heading originally, away from Walmart and toward the city.

"Are you alone? 'cause if you want, you can tag along with us. We've got enough food for now, and we can always use another pair of eyes", Claire tells her, and Emma shakes her head vehemently.

"Last time I had tried that, it ended really badly", she says, and Claire nods, glancing at Tom before speaking.

"Basically, you want us to go and stop asking you questions", Claire says and starts backing away.

Emma stays where she is while they fill their car and a couple of containers with gas, and when they head out on the road toward the city, she doubles over, finally able to breathe again.

It takes her a while to get her shaking hands under control because her trip isn't going the way she had planned and she's already regretting her decision to leave the way she did. She should've stayed and insisted on a plan that would have assured everybody's safety instead of disappearing at the crack of dawn, leaving Killian and Lily without a word of explanation. She glances at the clock on the dashboard and forces herself to snap out of it because it's already 10 a.m. and she did absolutely nothing with the time except fill on some gas.

When she reaches the Walmart parking lot, she drives the car around the building and parks next to the delivery gate, taking the sword and leaving the trunk opened.

The store is empty and she runs around throwing things into the shopping cart, glancing over her shoulder every five seconds and feeling like she's going to be sick from all the anxiety. She hates that she feels like this, hates how vulnerable this love has made her, but knows she'd rather have Killian than all the strength and nonchalance in the world.

As time passes and no zombies find their way in, Emma manages to relax a bit, and after she packs everything in the car she makes a few more circles through the store to make sure she has taken all the things she might need for Lily. She fills another bag with vitamins and all the over the counter medicine that could come in handy someday, trying not to entertain the possibility of serious diseases because there's nothing stronger than Tylenol in her collection. On an impulse, she also takes four dozen bags of various seeds, both vegetables and flowers, because if they're staying in the cabin, they might as well settle in and start gardening.

* * *

Hours pass slowly, even slower than usual when Emma is gone, when he knows she's hunting, staying in the woods where it's relatively safe because it's impossible to run into a larger group of zombies there, and most days it's hard to run into any zombies at all.

Killian rehearses everything that he's going to say to Emma when she gets back; how she's being reckless things for stupid reasons and how he thought he could trust her and how waking up and seeing that she'd gone felt like a stab in the back, even though he knows he's going to forget all of it the second he sees her again because he's going to be too relieved to care about anything except that she's safe in his arms.

Lily is unusually quiet because she's picking up on his bad mood, and he makes an effort to pretend that he's fine, telling her a story about the mermaids that live in Neverland because it's her favorite and it never fails to make her smile.

When Emma doesn't return for lunch, Lily gets weepy and nothing he says can calm her down.

"Come on little love, don't cry. Mommy went shopping today, and that's why she's late."

"But she'll be hungry. It's lunch time", Lily says, tears running down her cheeks, her green eyes big in her thin face.

"She'll eat on the way here", Killian tells her, brushing hair off her forehead and pulling her into his lap.

"But she always eats with us", Lily veils, pushing her forehead into his chest.

"Today we're going to eat lunch without her, but I'm sure she'll be back soon", he tells her, shifting her so she has to look at him.

"I don't want to eat anything without mommy", Lily says, her tears drying, her face looking exactly like Emma's when she's being stubborn, her lips compressed and a frown etched into her forehead.

"Are you sure? Because mommy would be really sad if she knew you were hungry", he tells her, and Lily thinks about that for a while, then agrees to eat only because "Killy is sad already, and Lily doesn't want to make mommy sad too".

After lunch, he sets the chair next to the sink and Lily stands on it, "helping" him wash the dishes. She's just splashing around and playing with the bubbles but she's giggling and he's glad that he had found a way to make her forget about zombies and Emma's absence, if only for a little while.

* * *

It's almost 3 p.m. when Emma finally starts back, passing by the gas station and filling the car again until the tank is full.

She reaches the end of their road without seeing anybody else and leaves the car without bothering to hide it, running through the woods until she can see the cabin, and then gradually slowing down until she stops moving altogether, afraid of what Killian's going to say, afraid that he's going to be mad at her because she knows she won't be able to take it. All she wants to do is crawl into his arms and hold on, and since she can't do that if she's standing in the middle of the clearing outside the cabin, she takes a deep breath and makes herself go forward.

The door opens before she even reaches for the knob and he's standing there looking at her with eyes dark blue with worry and barely contained anger.

"What the bloody hell were you-" He starts to say, but Emma smashes into him and his arms close around her, everything he was going to say forgotten in an instant. His love is like a warm blanket wrapping around her, and Emma inhales his scent and lets him take the weight of the world off her shoulders, her hunger and fear disappearing like they were never even there.

"Please don't do this to me again", he murmurs into her ear, and Emma pulls away, giving him a watery smile and wiping a few tears from her cheeks.

"I won't", she promises, standing on tiptoes to kiss him, his lips making her catch fire the second they meet hers.

"Mommy!" Lily cries, skipping downstairs and racing across the kitchen. Emma picks her up, leaning her shoulder against Killian's chest and burying her nose in her little girl's hair, knowing that next time they leave this cabin, they are going to leave it together.

* * *

**Review?**


	18. Fever

**Since everybody's excited to see what happens next, have another chapter. This one is the last calm before the storm because in the next the Charmings finally find them and then there's going to be feels upon feels to experience. I made a mix for the entire fic but you're going to have to wait to listen to it because it would spoil certain things for you. As always, enjoy and let me know what you think.**

* * *

Spring arrives seemingly overnight, everything around the cabin turning brilliantly green. Emma and Killian start attacking the overgrown garden on a Monday morning in March, while Lily happily digs holes with her plastic shovel, then fills them up again.

"Is there any point to us doing this?" Killian asks, hacking at a wild rose and cursing under his breath because he keeps getting prickled on thorns.

"We need space to plant the vegetables", Emma tells him, smiling down at Lily who pauses what she's doing and looks up at her.

"And flowers, pink pretty flowers", Lily says, and Killian rises his eyebrows at Emma, before nodding to himself.

"What about that entire clearing over there?" He asks her, pointing behind his shoulder with the machete he's using to battle the stubborn bush.

"Don't worry, I brought back enough seeds to covert that too", Emma says and winks at him, pulling out more weeds and throwing them on a heap that is already taller than Lily.

"I never imagined that I'd ever say this, but I'm going to miss canned food once it's gone", Killian says, then drops the machete and picks up Lily, setting her down where she isn't in his way. "Stay here little love, these thorns are nasty."

"Bad, bad thorns", Lily says, giving him her most adorable smile, and Emma just stands there watching them, wishing she could take a picture of this moment to help her remember how it had felt to be here years from now when Lily is all grown up. There's a certain understanding between Killian and Lily, something she can't quite touch, but it doesn't make her feel excluded; if anything, it makes her love for both of them grow.

She never had a real family growing up and barely got the chance to experience how it feels before the curse ripped her away from her parents and Henry, but now, now she thinks that it was all worth it to get a chance to love Killian and raise Lily with him.

* * *

Three days later, Lily wakes up sniffling, her temperature climbing all through the day. Emma tries not to fuss too much, telling herself that it's just a simple cold, but inside she's deathly afraid that this will lead to pneumonia and that she's going to lose her precious baby girl. Killian, on the other hand, is full on panicking, so Emma sends him downstairs to make tea and get a grip on his emotions.

"Sing me a song", Lily demands, clutching her stuffed elephant to her chest as Emma puts cold compresses on her forehead to lower her temperature.

"I don't really know any lullabies", Emma says, and Lily frowns.

"Sing me a song", she repeats, and Emma racks her brain to find a song she knows that's appropriate for singing to a sick three year old.

Finally, Emma takes a deep breath and starts singing "I Knew I Loved You" by Savage Garden, because in a way, it's a song that makes her think about life's unexpected turns and how Lily came to be hers at exactly the moment she longed for a child she could take care of. At first, she felt guilty for growing so attached to her so soon because it felt like betraying Henry, but now she just accepts that it was meant to be.

Lily spends most of the day sleeping, and Emma doesn't move from her side except to go to the bathroom, leaving it to Killian to run up and down the stairs and bring everything they need to help Lily feel better.

Neither of them gets to rest much that night because Lily keeps coughing in her sleep, but by morning it seems that the worse is behind them, her breathing less labored than it was, her coughing fits fewer and farther in between. Emma leans on Killian's shoulder, entwining her fingers with his, watching their little girl and letting herself relax and believe that she's going to be just fine.

* * *

Lily lies in her bed and Emma sits next to her reading her stories from various children's books she had taken from Walmart on her last run, letting Killian deal with the meals again. Now that it's clear that Lily's going to be okay, she lets herself feel all the fear she blocked yesterday, and wraps her arms around Lily and tells her she loves her very, very much.

"I love you too mommy", Lily says absentmindedly, following the words in the story Emma's reading with her little finger.

Killian comes back upstairs and lies face down on their bed, groaning softly.

"What's wrong?" Emma asks, slipping out of Lily's bed and kneeling next to him to look at his face.

"I don't feel so good", he says, and when Emma presses her palm against his forehead, her stomach dropping because it's way too hot.

"Looks like you've caught Lily's bug", Emma says, brushing away the hair that's sticking to his forehead. "Let's get you into bed."

Killian rolls over and looks at her, and she smiles, pretending that him being sick too doesn't scare her at all. She takes of his shoes and hook, helps him change into sweat pants and then goes to make him tea with vitamin C.

"Keep an eye on him, okay?" She tells Lily from the top of the stairs and the girl nods enthusiastically, taking her stuffed elephant and climbing onto the bed next to Killian.

"Don't worry, mommy. I'll take good care of him."

By the time Emma returns upstairs with tea, Killian is so hot she can barely touch him. She doesn't need a thermometer to know that this is serious because fever in adults can escalate quickly and be very dangerous, so she makes him get up and go with her to the bathroom, where she strips his soaked clothes and helps him into the tub, running lukewarm water all over him.

Meanwhile, Lily is crouching outside the bathroom, sticking her fingers through the ventilation holes low in the door, Emma talking to her the entire time to make sure she stays put.

"I'm sorry", Killian says groggily, and Emma frowns, following the line of his back with the shower head, barely listening to Lily babbling about the garden and how pretty it's going to be.

"About what, honey?" That little term of endearment escapes her, because she never calls him anything other than his name, but she can't help that she's worried and more scared than she wants to admit.

"About not doing something to prevent all this", he says, lifting his head to look at her.

"Tell me more about the flowers we're going to plant next week, Lily", Emma says to keep Lily occupied, glancing behind her to make sure that Lily's fingers are still sticking out of the ventilation holes, then frames Killian's face with her hands. "You're sick, and you're not making any kind of sense."

"I should've told Gold to shove his plan and make you cross the line", he says, his words coming slowly, Emma's heart breaking because it seems important to him to get it out even if his thoughts keep running away from him.

"That wasn't your responsibility", Emma tells him gently, caressing his cheek and feeling tears burn her sinuses because she loves this man so much and it hurts to see him like this.

"It was, Emma. Why did I let go of my revenge after you had returned from New York?"

"Because I asked you to", Emma says softly, and he nods, leaning his head against her hip.

"Because you asked me to. And when I should've asked you not to go, I didn't, because I thought you wouldn't listen to me. I keep accusing Ruplestiltskin of being a coward, and when it mattered, I was even worse."

Emma doesn't say anything, just keeps bathing him, waiting for his temperature to drop and talking to Lily through the door. She gets him back into bed, gives Lily her dinner and reads her a bedtime story, and then sits next to Killian, placing her palm against his forehead. It's still hot, but not as hot as before, and when he looks at her, he seems more coherent than he was in the bathroom.

"I wouldn't have listened to you", she tells him softly, giving him a sad smile, wishing she could find a way to dissuade him of this stupid notion that he's responsible for their situation. "If you asked me anything now, I would do it, no questions asked, but back then… I liked you, but I still wasn't sure I could trust you. It had nothing to do with you, and everything to do with what Henry's father did to me. He left me without a word and sold me out to the police, and since then, I was never able to trust anybody. But I trust you now, and I know you now, and you are not a coward. You're the bravest man I know."

"You would do anything I asked you to?" He says, reaching for her hand and running his thumb over the back of it in a slow, hypnotizing motion.

"Of course."

"Even if I asked you to promise me you'd go on without me if something happened to me?"

To Emma, it feels like all the air got sucked out of the room. She stares at Killian, amazed that he can be sneaky like this even when he's sick, and feeling at a loss for words. How can she answer this question without going back on her word, even though she had already told him she would never be able to promise him that. Her love for him keeps growing every day, and her ability to even think about being without him is practically nonexistent.

"Why is this so important to you?"

"Because there are no guarantees in this life, Emma. Because I want to know that you're going to be okay even if I'm not around to make sure that you are", he says, looking at her from under his eyelashes with eyes as blue and bright as the clearest summer sky.

"You know that's the only thing I can't promise you because I know I'm not going to be okay", she says, covering his mouth with her hand before he can try to argue with her again. "You're going to have to accept that I just can't imagine living without you."

"There's Lily to think about now", he says behind her hand, and Emma's eyes dart toward Lily, who's peacefully sleeping in her bed, looking like an angel with her dark curls spilling over her pillow, her mouth forming a perfect little o.

Emma realizes in that moment that she would give her own life to keep Lily safe, and that she would have to live for her if anything ever happens to Killian.

He recognizes the desperation in her eyes and leaves it at that, and Emma prays that she will never have to face her worst fear and find out if life can be lived without him and what kind of life would that be.

* * *

Emma spends the night watching over Killian, afraid that the fever will return if she sleeps even though she can barely keep her eyes open. She changes the cold compresses on his forehead periodically, and he wakes up a few times, telling her that he's fine, and drifting right off before she can tell him to shut up.

The night sky outside the roof window is sparkly with stars, and she finds herself wishing that nothing ever changes, that they go on through life like this, living and loving and staying safe in their little corner of the world.

There's nothing she wishes for more than having the opportunity to grow old with Killian, to stay by his side forever and wake up to him kissing her every morning until the end of time.

Sometime before dawn his temperature returns to normal, and she finally crawls into bed next to him, kissing his cheek before she settles down with her head on his shoulder. His arm pulls her closer even though he's still asleep, and Emma smiles, finally letting herself close her eyes and rest.

* * *

**Review?**


	19. Finally Reunited

**Tissue warning; next five chapters are going to be really, really depressing, so get ready for lots of feels. I'll try to be speedy with the updates because I know you'll be dying to see how it all plays out and if there's going to be a happy ending after all. **Spoiler alert**: of course the answer is **yes**.**

* * *

Snow and Charming spend thirteen days of their precious time waiting for the snow to melt and another forty-eight driving down various back roads because the book was a bit vague on the location of Emma's cabin and the only live people they had run into during that time pointed them in the wrong direction.

Charming has been taking their lack of success in stride, telling her over and over again that there's no way they're going to fail, but by the time they finally follow the dead-end road that leads to the trail though the woods, it's already mid-March and they've got twenty days left, and Snow could weep with relief.

"This is it", Charming says, returning from inspecting the Trans Am, smiling at her and giving her an I–told-you-so look. Her heart is racing at the thought that she's just half an hour away from Emma, and they start through the woods immediately, trying to stay alert and move fast at the same time.

Snow is about to start across the clearing when Charming stops her, motioning toward a wire low on the ground connected to a rudimentary warning system Hook had set up.

"They've got rifles, Snow. We can't just barge in on them", Charming tells her, and Snow nods, itching to race across the clearing and burst into the cabin, calling her daughter's name all the way there.

"So we ring the bell and wait", Snow says, breathless from the trek from the woods, barely able to contain her excitement.

They do so and watch as the doors of the cabin open slowly, Hook peeking out, his eyes scanning the edge of the woods.

"It's us!" Snow yells at the top of her lungs, and Emma pushes Hook aside, gripping her sword, looking right at Snow. She's too far away for Snow to make out the look on her face, but she's pretty sure it mirrors hers perfectly, right down to her trembling chin because she had finally found her baby again.

* * *

Emma walks across the clearing, watching Snow do the same, gripping the handle of her sword so tightly her knuckles turn white.

When Snow finally reaches her and she reaches Snow, they just stare at each other for a few moments, smiling identical watery smiles, tears rolling down their cheeks silently.

"Mom", Emma finally says, stepping into the circle of Snow's arms, pressing her face against Snow's shoulder and holding on as tightly as she can.

"Emma", Snow repeats her name at least a dozen times, like she's trying to make herself believe that this is real, that she has finally found her and that nothing will take her away ever again. Charming joins them, taking the sword from Emma's hand and wrapping his arms around them both, his lips pressed against the crown of Emma's head. They sink to their knees in a heap, and Emma feels like a kid on a Christmas morning when his greatest wish comes true. At that moment, she doesn't think about zombies and all she'd been through, or Killian who's standing next to the cabin holding Lily in his arms, talking to her softly, she doesn't even think about the fact that her parents have come to bring her back to Henry; all she can think about is that her mother and father are holding her tight and that she's finally, finally able to be somebody's daughter again.

* * *

"Does time pass differently here?" Snow finally releases her and asks, looking over her shoulder at Killian, and Emma realizes she thinks that Lily is their daughter and that they've been stuck here for four years.

"No, it doesn't. Lily's father had a car accident and we stumbled upon it. She thinks I'm her mother", Emma says softly, waving at her baby girl, who waves back shyly, then hides her face into Killian's neck.

Snow and Charming exchange a look of utter shock and Emma feels like she'd been punched in the gut.

"I know that you think I'm using her to deal with missing Henry, but that's not it", Emma says, getting to her feet and jutting out her chin. "She doesn't have anyone else."

"We know", Snow says gently, wiping at her face furiously because new tears are coming and Emma frowns in confusion.

"Then why are you still crying?" she asks her, glancing at Charming, hating the grim look on his face, her voice breaking because she can feel another heartbreak coming as certainly as she feels her heart slamming against her rib cage. "Is Henry okay?" She asks, panic making her snatch her father's hand and hold on.

"He's fine", he reassures her gently and starts for the cabin before she can ask another question, keeping an eye on the woods as if he's expecting an attack any second now.

Emma slips her hand into Snow's and they follow him, and those fifty feet to the cabin stretch ahead like infinity as Emma makes various deals with herself; she's never going to ask for anything else or complain about any aspect of her life if everything works out fine now, if everybody just stays safe.

She should know better by now because for every good thing that has happened so far, there has been another bad thing, and she's got a feeling that this bad thing is going to be the worst of all.

* * *

Emma sits across the table from Snow and Charming, listening to them talk about the way they came to be here and all that's happened to them since coming through the portal.

"So you've been here for over two months?" Emma asks, still unable to wrap her head around the fact that her parents are really actually here.

"There are like a million back roads around here", Snow says, reaching for Emma's hand. "Henry's book didn't actually give us the exact coordinates of your cabin."

"And we ran into this Claire woman and her brothers and they told us they've seen you heading toward the interstate so we wasted two weeks going that way before coming to the realization that they must've misunderstood you", Charming says, and Emma curses herself for not sensing that Claire was okay and just telling her the truth; if she had it would've saved them a great deal of time and effort.

"I can't believe you just left him with Regina", Emma says when they tell her that Henry was a part of the deal they had to make to come here, pissed off because if there's a person she's never going to trust, it's Regina. She is the reason they are in this mess in the first place, all because she couldn't accept the fact that Emma wouldn't let Henry see her until she changed and stopped with the scheming.

"We didn't have any choice. We couldn't stand by and watch you go through hell when we had a chance to bring you back", Charming tells her, and Emma blinks back tears because she's so tired of this life, and she can't wait to go back and show Lily what a real, safe world looks like.

"If you read about me and Killian in the book, how come you didn't know about Lily?" Emma asks, blushing a little as she imagines it showing her and Killian in bed, because that is something your parents and especially your son should never see.

"I've been meaning to talk to you about Hook-" Charming starts to say, but Snow interrupts him.

"We left before that chapter of the book appeared. We had no idea there would be three of you", Snow says, her voice breaking at the end of the sentence, and Emma feels a chill of foreboding run down her spine. Snow's entire face is crumpling and she hides it behind her hands, unable to look at either her daughter or husband. Charming pulls her against him and Emma just sits there, deliberately making herself think about nothing at all because if she does, she's going to figure out what this means and she doesn't want to know. "Tell her", Snow finally chokes out, wiping her face on Charming's shirt but the tears just keep on coming.

"Tell me what?" Emma whispers, glancing toward the stairs leading up to where she can hear Lily's tiny voice giggling at something Killian is telling her.

"The amount of people that can go out of the portal has to be equal to the amount of people that came in, and we only brought two dead bodies with us", Charming says, and it takes Emma about two seconds to realize that they hadn't taken Lily into account and that someone is going to have to be left behind.

"I'm so sorry, Emma", Snow says, taking a deep breath before delivering the final blow. "You're going to have to leave Killian behind if you want to take Lily with you."

There's a strange rushing in Emma's head that makes her sway in her seat and something between a sob and a shriek comes out of her mouth before she covers it with her hands. She's distantly aware of footsteps on the stairs and then Killian's arms are around her and she's clinging to him for dear life, her mind racing as she tries to find a combination of people going through the portal that wouldn't be as horrible as the notion of leaving Killian behind.

"What the hell did you tell her? Is Henry okay?" Killian asks Charming, and even Emma's muddled brain doesn't fail to notice that his first concern was Henry, and her chest is so tight with love and desperation that she can barely take a breath. "Emma, sweetheart, calm down. You're going to faint if you don't start breathing soon", he tells her, looking down at her and brushing hair away from her face.

"I can't lose you", Emma says flatly, drawing a ragged breath and wishing with all her heart that her parents had never came.

"You won't lose me, love", Killian tells her gently, and his smile is breaking her inside, but she can't bring herself to tell him what she had just learned.

"If we take Lily and Emma with us through the portal, you have to stay behind", Charming finally says when it's obvious that Emma can't find the words, and she forces herself to watch the realization dawning on his face. He tries so hard to get his emotions under control, but when his eyes finally find Emma's they look as haunted as hers must be.

For the first time since she's met him Killian Jones is afraid, and Emma wishes that all this was only a bad dream she could wake up from.

"Mommy?" Lily says, standing on the third step, looking at them all uncertainly, her eyes going wide when she notices that Emma is crying.

"Come here, sweetheart", Killian says, holding out his hand for Lily. She's still looking at Emma like she'd seen a ghost and Emma makes an effort to smile and nod, wiping her cheeks with the back of her hand.

"Come meet your grandparents", Emma says, and Lily looks past Emma at Snow, a wide smile stretching her cheeks, because they've read Snow White and the seven dwarves and Emma had told her that Snow is her grandma.

"I was only confused because your hair is short, but you're still very pretty", Lily tells Snow, climbing on the chair Emma had been occupying to get closer to her.

Emma lets Killian set her on her feet and they stand there looking at Lily as she talks to Snow and Charming, asking them questions about dwarves and poisoned apples and can they take her to a ball when she grows up. Their arms are wrapped around each other so tightly that it's hard to see where one ends and the other begins, both of them trying to find a loophole that isn't there. Emma's cheek is resting against Killian's chest and she can hear his heart racing in time with hers, and it's the saddest thing she had ever heard.

It sounds like a silent goodbye, like eternal love dying before its time with the softest of sighs.

* * *

**Review?**


	20. Emma's Choice

**Thank you so much for so many nice reviews; I'm glad you think the story is good even if it's getting really angsty. New chapter will be up tomorrow night because I know how desperate you're going to be to read what happens next...**

* * *

Emma and Killian are lying in their bed facing each other, his hand cupping her face and wiping away tears as they come. Snow and Charming are outside taking a walk with Lily, who's taken to Snow immediately and jumped at the opportunity to spend time with a real life princess.

"I'm going to stay here with you", Emma says, her eyes roaming over Killian's face, trying to memorize every line because she knows he's not going to let her stay.

"No, you're not", Killian tells her softly, shifting her on top of him, his arms wrapped around her waist. She rests her chin on her hand and shakes her head, her eyes pleading with him to understand that she just can't leave him behind.

"I can't go back without you. I tried imagining myself doing it and it makes me physically sick just thinking about it."

"You can, darling, and you must. Henry and Lily need you to be there for them", he tells her, and Emma chokes back a sob because she wants to be strong for him; if she goes back her parents and her children are going to help her through, and he's going to be all alone in a dead world.

"What about you? Don't you need me?" She asks, and feels a kick in her gut at the thought that essentially, she's going to have to choose between her children and the love of her life.

"Of course I do. But they need you more", she closes her eyes in hopes of composing herself so she can come up with some great argument that would make him see that she has to stay, but he pulls her closer and distracts her with a kiss. "I've seen what it does to a mother to choose love over her child, and I don't want that for you."

For the first time he tells her the entire story of him, Milah and Rumplestiltskin, and Emma can't believe that the history is repeating like this, that two people so removed from each other like her and Milah could have a destiny so entwined and face the exact same choice.

"I liked Milah from the second I lay eyes on her, and when she chose to leave her husband and son for me I welcomed her with open arms. It was much later, after I had fallen in love with her that I saw how much that decision haunted her, but by then it was too late. I'm not going to let you do the same and live with that regret."

Emma is silent for a while, thinking about Henry and how much it would hurt him to find out that she had a choice to come back to him and decided not to. She loves him so much, and the thought of hurting him like that is almost as painful as the thought of leaving Killian behind, but she's been without Henry for almost six months and she hadn't been apart from Killian for more than a couple of hours; any way she looks at it the choice is impossible to make because how do you measure love and who needs whom more? How do you decide whose heart are you going to break when yours will end up in pieces no matter who you choose?

She'd been so afraid of losing Killian to zombies, and she finds that the possibility of going home without him and leaving him here alone is equally horrible.

"I never thought we'd last forever; this world is too violent for that", Emma says wistfully, feeling strangely removed from herself, amazed at how calm she sounds, despite the tears that just keep on coming. "But I always thought we'd have more time", she finishes, and then she breaks, because deep down inside she knows that she can't choose Killian over her babies, no matter how much she wishes that she could.

"We've got twenty days, and it's going to have to be enough", he tells her softly, rolls them over and kisses her tear-streaked cheeks, and when her tears finally dry and Emma wraps herself around him as tight as she can, she prays for another child, for a part of him that she can take with her when she leaves.

* * *

Snow can't believe that this has happened, that they came all this way thinking they would make Emma happier and safer, and instead they've only made her more miserable.

"If you're a princess, then mommy is a princess too. What about me?" Lily asks her, pulling her out of her reverie, and Snow looks down at her, pausing for a moment for better effect.

"You're the prettiest little princess I've ever seen", she says, and Lily beams up at her, then twirls around and squats down to look at some wildflowers that are starting to bloom on the clearing next to the cabin.

"Emma's going to be okay, Snow", Charming tells her pulling her close to his side, and they stand there watching Lily talk to herself as she picks the flowers, feeling affection toward her despite the fact that she's doesn't share their blood.

"No, she really won't be. I remember how it had felt when I thought I'd go into that wardrobe without you, leaving you behind for the curse to take you to a horrible land… I never actually had to do it, but Emma will, and it's going to break her. She loves him so much, and it's so unfair", Snow says, biting the inside of her cheek and blinking fast to keep from crying because the last thing she wants to do is upset Lily.

"Maybe we'll find some way to open the portal again in a few months", Charming says, but it's clear to both of them that he's just grasping at straws.

"You heard Cora. This is the last time she's doing it, and no one else can do it because she's the only one who knows what land this is. Emma's never going to see him again", Snow says with terrible finality and presses her face against Charming's shoulder, trying not to think about how it would feel if she were in her daughter's place, if she were the one leaving her true love behind.

"Snow… What if we stayed here instead of Hook?" Charming asks her, looking down at her, and for a moment she's utterly confused.

"What?"

"Think about it. I don't care where we are as long as we're together, and that would be their only shot at being together", Charming says, his voice catching because Emma is his baby and he'd do anything to make sure she's happy, even stay in this world forever, always looking over his shoulder and fighting for his and Snow's life.

"I'm pregnant", Snow says, closing her eyes and wishing she wasn't two months late because she would gladly stay here and give Emma a chance to have a happy life with Killian.

"Are you sure?" Charming asks her and she nods, looking up at him and seeing joy and sorrow fight for precedence on his face.

"Completely sure."

Charming pulls her in for a kiss, and it's easier now that she doesn't carry the burden of this knowledge alone, even though he's going to treat her like she's made of glass from now on.

Snow blinks back tears when she looks at Lily, and even though they wouldn't be having this conversation if it wasn't for her, Snow can't fault her with anything because she's just a little girl who's had a lot of misfortune in her short life and now that she's finally found some semblance of family, they're going to turn her world upside down again.

"We're going to go back to our house before it's dark, and we're not coming back until day eighty-nine", Snow tells Charming, and he agrees, because they both know what it means to try and build a lifetime of memories in just a couple of days.

* * *

For the next three weeks Emma and Killian barely sleep, making love and spending time with Lily and then making love again. They still haven't told her that she and Emma are leaving without Killian because Emma keeps insisting that it's better if she doesn't know, but he's worried that it's going to be too hard on Emma to deal with Lily's sadness alone when they get back to Maine.

"I'll tell her tomorrow. She's going to cry for a while but then she's going to be fine; she's a tough little lass", Killian says as the tenth day speeds by and becomes eleventh. They are lying entwined in bed, and Emma glances at Lily's sleeping form and shakes her head.

"No, you won't. If you tell her tomorrow, we're going to spend the entire day consoling her and then we're going to have to do the same thing on the day we leave. Can we please pretend that it's not happening and drop it?" Emma asks him, tracing pathways in his chest hair with her finger, swallowing the lump in her throat that just won't go away.

"Emma-"

"Please, Killian. We've only got nine days left", she says, straddling his hips and framing his face with her hands.

"Very well", he says and offers her a brave smile as the clock keeps ticking on.

* * *

He wishes he could slow down time, make every day with Emma last a lifetime and at the same time make Lily grow faster, so that he doesn't miss all the adorable and wonderful things she says as she becomes aware of the world around her.

On the fourteenth morning he's washing the dishes from breakfast while Emma is outside, and Lily is standing on a chair next to him, playing with the bubbles with a pensive frown on her face, so he asks her what's on her mind.

"I was just thinking", she says, running her finger over the edge of the sink, foam dripping on the floor.

"About?"

"Mommy is really sad, but I think it's not because of me… Is it?" She asks him, looking up at him with steady eyes, and he drops what he's doing, picks her up and sits down with her in his lap, wishing Emma had listened to him when he told her that they've got to tell Lily.

"She's not sad because of you, little love", he says, debating whether to tell her now or not.

"Are you sure?"

"Yes."

"Then why?"

"Because she's afraid she's going to lose me", he tells her softly, and Lily thinks about it for a moment, then beams up at him.

"Then just tell her that you're not going anywhere", she says and presses her lips against his cheek before jumping off his lap and going to gather her toys so that they can play when he's done with the dishes, their conversation instantly forgotten because she thinks she has found the perfect solution to the problem.

Killian wishes the world was as simple as children think it is and gets up from the chair with a heavy sigh, glancing out the window and watching Emma watering the flowers, her hair shining in the sunlight like molten gold.

He wants to keep her with him so bad it hurts, but he loves her too much to be selfish and deny her either safety or her son. It might kill him to be without her, but he's not going to keep her here and risk losing her anyway.

* * *

Emma can't bring herself to go hunting but she tries to find something to do in the kitchen or in the garden, just so that Killian can spend some time alone with Lily. She hears them reading stories or playing with Lily's stuffed animals, and presses her hands over her mouth to keep from sobbing out loud because she can't be strong when no one sees her; she can pretend that nothing's wrong when she's with them, but when she's alone she can't hold it together.

No matter how much they both try to pretend that it's going to be okay, their future is hanging over their heads every minute of every day. She often catches him looking at her with such a faraway expression on his face, but he always shakes it off instantly and pulls her in for a kiss, and she can't help thinking of all the kisses that won't happen, of all the nights that she's going to lay in bed alone wishing she could pull him close and make love to him just one more time.

"I don't know what I'm going to do without you", she tells him at least once a day, and no matter how heartbroken she is, she knows it's nothing compared to how she's going to feel once they are a world apart.

"I'm still going to love you, and you're going to be fine", he tells her, and she shakes her head.

"Are you going to be fine?"

"No", he says, and kisses her again before she can say anything else.

* * *

And then, somehow, too soon, it's already the night before her parents are coming to take her away from the love of her life, before her world splits in two and Killian gets stuck on the wrong side.

* * *

**Review?**


	21. Last Time for Everything

**You're probably going to hate me after this chapter and the next two, but keep in mind that there is going to be a happy ending, and that it's going to feel that much happier because all this pain I put you through. A big thank you for reading this even when it hurts; it means a lot to me that you trust me to make everything right again.**

* * *

How do you deal with the fact that you only have one more night in the arms of your lover, your confidante, your best friend? Emma doesn't know. Emotions are hitting her from all sides and she doesn't know whether to cry, make love to him as many times as she can or keep telling him how much she loves him, so she ends up doing everything at once.

Killian is infinitely patient with her, and somehow, Emma makes herself calm down even though she's still painfully aware of time passing, the fact that they only have hours left like a thorn in her heart every time she moves.

Afterwards, he's sitting against the headboard of their bed and she's straddling his lap, her arms and legs wrapped around him, her head resting against his shoulder. She couldn't be closer to him even if she tried, and still it's not enough.

"Tell me a story", Emma whispers, her fingers going up and down his back, again and again, and the realization that this is the last time she's holding him like this cuts her like a knife. She had never experienced anything like this, and she takes a deep breath, inhaling the scent of his skin until the pain subsides, wondering if it's possible to actually die of a broken heart.

"What kind of story, love?" He asks her, kissing her shoulder, her neck, her hair, any part of her that's within the reach of his lips.

"A story with a happy ending", she says, and she can hear a smile in his voice when he starts telling her their story, from that first day in the Enchanted Forest, to Storybrooke, and finally this world.

"But then Emma had to leave Killian behind… again", he says, and even though his intention was to make light of their situation, Emma can't make her lips stretch into a smile.

"How is that a happy story?" She asks, pulling away to look at him, regretting every single time she had left him behind in the past because he had never deserved it, wishing she could turn back time and do everything different, starting from that day up on the beanstalk.

"Patience, lass", he says, and Emma finds it hard to meet his eyes without biting the inside of her cheek to keep her chin from trembling.

"It better be good", she says and turns around so that she's leaning against his chest, his arms wrapped around her waist. She loves how this feels, how he surrounds her on all sides, and she closes her eyes, trying to memorize every detail of this moment so she can find comfort in it when he's not there to hold her anymore.

"There's nothing that Emma wants more than to stay, but she doesn't because she needs to take care of her children and tell them all about the charming pirate whose heart is in her keeping."

Emma realizes that there are tears streaming down her face again and tries to turn to look at Killian, but his arms stay tightly wrapped around her, his lips pressing against her wet cheek. She gives up the fight and leans her head back against his shoulder, looking at Lily sleeping soundly in her bed and wishing she could be as oblivious as her baby girl is.

"Once he's left alone in their cabin, Killian packs the car and leaves, because he can't stand seeing Emma's and Lily's ghosts in the empty rooms. He travels down many roads and finally reaches the ocean, where he steals a ship and sails around the world until he finds a way to cross worlds again. It takes him years, but he never gives up, and he finds Emma again."

Emma listens to the sound of Killian's voice, his accent still sending shivers down her spine, seeing the future she can never have playing in her mind so clearly, like a dream that's so beautiful that your brain lets you remember it for days after you've woken up.

This time he lets her turn around and look at him, and there's such conviction in his blue eyes that she doesn't bother pointing out that this world is without magic.

"Have I ever given you a reason to doubt me? I will find a way to you", he tells her like he's reading her mind, wiping away her silent tears with his thumb and the back of his hand, and Emma nods, kissing him until she can't think about anything except the heat between them and the feel of him around her and inside her.

* * *

Snow and David arrive after breakfast, and Emma feels oddly distanced from herself and completely disconnected from the world around her. She packs Lily's clothes and toys while Killian sits with her on the bed and tells her that she and mommy are going on a trip to a better place.

"And Killy?" Lily asks, immediately catching on the fact that he never mentions himself going with them.

"Killy must stay here for a while, to make sure they are safe", he explains, and Lily frowns.

"We're not safe without you", she tells him seriously, and Emma races downstairs with the bag because when Cora was trying to pull her heart out of her chest it hurt less than this.

Snow looks up from the table and offers her a sad smile, but Emma moves past her and Charming, dropping the bag next to the door and going outside. She stands in the garden, well aware that she's wasting her last minutes with Killian, but unable to go back inside and face Lily.

"Emma", he comes out and she turns in surprise, expecting to see Lily in his arms.

"Where is she?"

"With your parents. She took it better than we expected", he tells her, slowly coming closer, looking at her like he expects her to fall apart any second now. She tells herself she won't, and only manages to keep it together because she'll be damned if one of his last memories of her is going to be a sniveling mess.

"She's always been tough", Emma says because it's easier like this, talking about Lily and pretending that they are fine.

"As were you", he tells her, and she laughs bitterly because she hadn't been tough for a long long time.

"Tell me that your story won't be just a fairytale. Tell me you're coming after us. Make me believe", Emma says, wrapping her arms around his neck and looking at him, taking in the lines on his face that weren't there before all this, realizing she doesn't have a single picture to remember him by.

"We're meant to be, Emma. I was supposed to die two hundred and fifty years ago, and I've crossed worlds to come to the one you were in", he says, nudging her nose with his. "We are going to see each other again."

Hope takes root in her soul and when he kisses her, she lets herself believe, if only for a moment, if only until his lips leave hers and she is once more reminded how hard it is to breathe without him.

* * *

Lily insists on giving Killian her favorite elephant, and no amount of blinking can stop Emma from crying. Snow and Charming finish putting most of their provisions into the Trans Am and then get into the truck as Emma watches Killian settle Lily in, kissing the top of her head and carefully closing the door. He turns to Emma with the elephant in the crook of his left arm and she shakes her head, feeling like she's standing on the edge of a precipice, wishing this could just be over.

It's horrible, but she wants to get into that truck and get away from his eyes, from his hand reaching for hers for the last time. Still, she knows that she's going to regret it the second he disappears from her sight, so she entwines her fingers with his and tells him that she loves him more than she had ever thought she could love anybody.

"I love you more, my darling princess", he says and brushes his lips against her knuckles. Emma swallows and turns her back on him, making three steps around the truck before she's unable to go on. She goes back and wraps her arms around him, pressing her nose against his neck and letting him hold her like he's never going to let her go.

"Don't make me wait too long", she tells him and pulls away, watching a solitary tears spill down his stubbled cheek.

"Never", he tells her firmly and she nods, catching that tear with her thumb before he walks her around the truck and opens the door for her. She climbs in next to Lily and pulls her close, the sound of his goodbye ringing in her ears as both of them wave at him long after he's nothing but a little speck in their rearview window.

It's only then that Emma realizes he hasn't kissed her goodbye.

* * *

The ride to the city is eerily silent; Charming is focusing on the road and the map he had drawn on the way here, Snow keeps throwing worried glances toward the back seat but can't find any comforting words and Lily is sleeping in Emma's arms, lulled by the moving of the truck.

Emma is staring out the window feeling her throat tighten every time they pass by some landmark she remembers from coming this way with Killian; there seems to be a staggering amount of those, and she can't take it anymore, so she closes her eyes and tries to think about nothing at all.

It's not working because she can still hear his voice in her ear telling her their story and giving it a happy ending, and his scent is caught on both hers and Lily's clothes, making her feel like she's being repeatedly hit in the chest every time she inhales.

* * *

They reach the street with the dormant portal with an hour to spare before sundown, and Snow and Charming go out to clear the street of the zombies. Emma stays in the car because Lily is scared as it is, even though she's really in the mood to shoot some arrows in zombie's faces.

Despite Emma telling her that nobody's going to hurt her, all the moaning coming from outside the truck makes Lily start crying, and she wraps her arms around Emma's neck and hides her face in Emma's shoulder.

"Make it stop", she veils, and Emma rubs her back and tells her that soon they're going to be safe. "Just a little while and all this will be gone", she says, and wipes her own tears away because when all this is gone, so is the hope of seeing Killian again.

"I want Killy", Lily chokes out, and Emma welcomes this pain and vows that she's going to do everything in her power to stop her from forgetting Killian the way she had forgotten her father.

"I want him too", Emma says, watching through the window as Snow blows the magic words from the paper, drawing Lily's attention to the gently swirling portal opening in the street.

"What's that?" Lily asks, her tears drying instantly as she scrambles over Emma's lap and presses her nose against the window.

"It's the way home", Emma explains as Snow and Charming get back into the truck.

"Ready?" Charming asks with a smile that falls when he meets Emma's haunted eyes.

"Let's just go", Emma says, her entire body poised for flight.

Snow turns in her seat and grabs Emma's hand, giving her support and at the same time stopping her from jumping out of the car at the last possible second, which is the only thing she can think about right now.

Ten seconds later it's all over, and they are driving away from Storybrooke, toward Henry and a future without Killian.

Emma holds onto Lily and Snow's hand, feeling so numb and cold that she begins to wonder if this is what dying feels like.

* * *

**Review?**


	22. Life Will Go On

**I'm going to say it again: this is a **zombie!AU**, so it's bound to be a bit depressing. Most of apocalypse!fics end with everybody being dead, so take that into consideration when you start thinking that this one is too sad, and think of the happy that's coming your way after next chapter. Thanks for reading and leaving so many positive reviews; every single one is greatly appreciated.**

* * *

_Ellsworth, Maine_

Charming stops the truck in front of Regina's apartment building, and it takes Emma ten minutes to convince Lily that she's not leaving her forever.

"You sure you don't want us to stay?" Snow asks, and Emma shakes her head, kissing the top of Lily's head before she exits the truck. She looks around, half expecting zombies to come at her from around the corner of the building, sorely missing her sword, fairly certain that her heart is absent from her chest too. Now that it's over, now that she had lost Killian and there's nothing she can do to bring him here she feels oddly calm, but she guesses it's better than the alternative, which would be rocking in a corner and crying because she misses him like an amputated limb.

Emma ignores the compressing of her chest at the thought that she can't go back to Killian and kiss him ever again and climbs the stairs to Regina's apartment, ringing the bell before she can work herself up for a confrontation, because even though it might make her feel better momentarily, the last thing she wants to do is upset Henry.

"Emma", Regina says when she opens the door, her eyes wide because she clearly hadn't expected this.

"Can I see Henry?" Emma asks and moves past Regina before she can say anything. She finds Henry watching TV and they just stare at each other for a heartbeat before he launches himself from the couch and flings his arms around her.

"I knew you'd come back", he says, and Emma catches Regina's eyes in the mirror hanging above the mantel, silent understanding passing between them. They need a new way of dealing with Henry having two moms and it's not their usual going for each other's throat.

"Didn't you read in your book that I was coming?" Emma asks, looking down at him, dread filling her gut at the thought that something happened to it.

"The last chapter still hasn't appeared", he tells her, pulling away to look at her.

Emma brushes hair away from his eyes, marveling at how much he'd grown in the time she'd been away, smiling when a rush of love goes through her just from looking at him.

"Is Lily with Killian? You found a way for everybody to come back, right? I was worried for a while because Mary Margaret and grandpa didn't know about Lily when they went through", Henry says, and Emma feels that absent heart of hers make a painful reappearance. She tries to speak, to tell him that it's just her and Lily because they had to leave Killian behind, but the words are stuck in her throat and she can't say them out loud.

"Mom?"

"There's no way to bring out five people when you send in four", Regina says softly, and Emma looks at Regina over her shoulder, expecting her to look pleased, but she just looks regretful. It's only then that Emma realizes that Regina is different, and she doesn't know if it's from the lack of magic in Regina's life or because of Henry, but she looks more approachable than ever.

"So, how much longer until the new chapter appears?" Emma asks Henry, trying to sound casual, but it comes out choked. He gives her an encouraging smile and leads her to the couch, grabbing the book from the coffee table and handing it to her.

"There will be no new chapters", Regina says, coming closer, and both Emma and Henry's head snap up toward her. Emma holds the book in her hands, only now realizing that she had been counting on seeing Killian in it all along but never mentioned it to anyone because she didn't want to jinx it.

"Why not?" Henry asks, and Regina drops down on the couch next to him, looking at Emma when she speaks.

"Emma was a kind of connection between that word and this, and now that she's here, there's no magical signal that the book can pick up. It stopped being a magical object the second you came out of the portal", Regina says, giving her a tiny apologetic shrug, and Emma looks down at the warn leather, wondering how many times had Henry opened it and read about her and Killian, her heart breaking yet again because their story would now remain unfinished.

* * *

Regina sends Henry to get ready for bed two hours later, after he's told Emma everything about school, new friends he's making and movies he'd seen lately. It's comforting to be able to look at him and listen to him talking about things that excite him, but the entire time she's doing so she can't help thinking about taking the book somewhere private and reading it cover to cover.

"I know that you want to take Henry home with you as soon as possible, and I appreciate you letting him stay here tonight", Regina says, and Emma frowns in confusion because losing Killian put everything in perspective and it didn't even occur to her to take Henry away from Regina, especially because anybody could see that Regina's really changed.

"He can stay here for a couple more days, until we figure out how we're going to do this", Emma says, and it's Regina's turn to look surprised.

"I expected you'd want to take him first thing tomorrow", Regina says, and Emma shrugs.

"The way I see it, we've got three options; first, we make him move back and forth between us, second, we find a house big enough for all of us and move in together, and third, take this to court."

Regina looks bewildered and Emma knows it's the second option that's freaking her out because that's the one that would solve all their problems. Third option isn't really available to them because there's too much that they wouldn't be able to explain and the first one would be bad for Henry, and they've finally came to the silent agreement that Henry's well being is more important than their own.

"Look, I'm not crazy about doing the co-parenting thing with you and I'd much rather just take Henry with me and ban you from his life, but he's been through so much and I'm done forcing him to choose between us."

Regina nods tightly and promises to think about it, and Emma calls Charming to come pick her up.

"Can I take the book tonight?" She asks Henry as she tucks him in, and he nods, pulling her down for a hug and whispering in her ear that he's glad she hadn't decided to stay with Killian instead of coming back here. Emma freezes in horror, realizing too late that he had read about her moment of weakness and that it probably seemed like she almost choose Killian over her own son.

"Henry-"

"It's okay", he says and she shakes her head because she needs to make him understand that she was always going to choose him, even if it didn't seem like that at first, even if she wished to stay with Killian with every fiber of her being.

"I was trying to find a way to stay with Killian because I love him so much, but you're my son and I will never abandon you again, no matter what happens", she says, tears rolling down her cheeks silently because she almost broke his heart again.

When he smiles, she finds that she's okay with her heart being broken instead.

* * *

Lily's already asleep by the time Emma and Charming get home, curled on the couch in the living room.

"She wouldn't go to sleep anywhere else", Snow says softly, leading Emma to the kitchen and offering her hot chocolate. Emma takes a careful sip and closes her eyes because this is the first time she's drinking it since Storybrooke and she can't believe how much she had missed the taste.

"It's because she'd been sleeping on the bed Killian-" Emma starts to say, and then she just breaks. She'd been able to hold it together earlier because she was focused on Henry, but now everything hits her like a freight train and she doubles over the counter, sobs wrecking her body until she feels like she's never going to draw another breath again.

Snow hesitates for only a second before she crosses the kitchen and wraps her arms around Emma, the two of them sinking to the floor together. Charming comes into the kitchen and closes the door behind him so that Emma's crying doesn't wake up Lily, kneeling next to her and Snow and gently caressing Emma's back, neither him nor Snow saying anything because this is the kind of pain that demands to be felt and there are no words that would make it go away faster.

Emma thinks briefly of Graham and the last time she was like this, but the comparison is weak because when he died they were just beginning and her feelings weren't nearly as strong as they are for Killian. The thought of never seeing his eyes, never touching his skin again, never inhaling his scent is making her feel like she's falling apart from the inside and for the briefest of seconds she wishes she had never met him, because then she wouldn't hurt like this, she wouldn't long for his arms more than anything else in this world.

"Focus on the good, Emma", Snow says, and Emma comes to the conclusion that she'd do it all again just to get a chance to experience love like the one they shared, even if it was just for a short time, even if it hurts like this now.

No one can take away her memories and that's where he's always going to love her, that's where their love will be safe from oblivion that time inevitably brings.

Still, it's not until Lily wakes up an hour later calling for her that Emma finally finds the strength to dry her tears and get up from the floor, racing to Lily's side. She finds her daughter sitting on the floor crying, and Emma kneels next to her, taking her in her arms and rocking with her slowly.

"Mommy's little lamb went for a walk", she tells her gently because it's not the first time she fell out of bed after a nightmare, and she'd learned that making it sound funny helps Lily calm down faster than babying her does.

"I miss Killy so much", Lily says, wiping her tears away and rearranging Emma's hair on her shoulders, desperately trying to be brave.

"I miss him too, baby", Emma says softly and puts her back into bed, sitting with her and telling her stories about Neverland, all the while thinking that Killian is much better at it than she is and glad that Lily doesn't seem to notice.

* * *

Emma waits until her parents go to bed before she drops down in an armchair across the living room from Lily and opens Henry's book, promising herself that she wouldn't cry because this is a miracle and it's supposed to make her happy and grateful.

She tells herself that she should stop feeling sorry for herself because Killian doesn't even have this on top of being all alone in a world filled with the dead, but it doesn't have the desired effect. He's probably fighting for his life and she's sitting here with dread filling her gut, wondering if she would know if something happened to him.

"Please just stay alive", she whispers and starts reading their story, savoring every word, staring at his pictures for the longest time, her fingers caressing the pages as she imagines that somehow he can feel her touch because she's magical and what's the point of her if she can't offer him any kind of comfort?

* * *

Even though she's exhausted, she knows that she won't be able to go to sleep alone after months of having Killian's arms around her every night, so she takes Lily's bag to the room Snow and Charming had intended for her when they first got the apartment.

She dumps everything on the bed and starts folding the clothes, putting it away in the closet across from the bed, focusing all her attention on this simple task. The repetitive motions seem to help keeping her thoughts unconnected to each other until she encounters a shirt too big to be Lily's and pulls it out of the heap, her fingers trembling when she realizes it's the same one Killian wore to bed last night.

Slowly, reluctantly, hoping against hope that her eyes aren't deceiving her and that it had kept his scent in its folds, Emma brings it to her nose and inhales, unable to believe that her tears still haven't dried up when she has to blink them away again.

Emma stuffs the pillow into Killian's shirt and lays down on the bed in a sea of Lily's clothes, hugging it to her chest and breathing him in until she's almost hyperventilating because she knows that in a few days this last part of him will be gone and she's going to have to face the years with nothing but her memories and a couple of pictures in Henry's book.

Her misery is too great to let her acknowledge the possibility that she might be pregnant with Killian's baby, but then again, what you need most will only come to you when you're not expecting it.

* * *

**Review?**


	23. Can't Shake You

**Here we go, hope and bitersweet happiness everywhere; new chapter just in time for you to read before the episode. Let us hope that Hook comes back to us on the show, because we need him as much as Emma does in this fic.**

* * *

_One week later_

Everybody's busy packing because next week they are moving to a duplex; Regina, Emma, Lily and Henry downstairs, and Snow and Charming upstairs. It was Regina's idea, because "she would go insane if she had to live in the same household as the two idiots". Emma is fine with the arrangement because it means she'd be close to both her parents and Henry, but at this point, she'd be fine with pretty much any arrangement that has her son in it.

Somehow it seems that the more time passes, the greater her longing for Killian is, and finally, she can't take it anymore. She needs to feel close to him and she can't do that in Ellsworth, were the only thing she can connect to him is an odd Pontiac on the road and his shirt that she still wears to bed even though his scent is gone and it's never coming back.

So, exactly one week after she came through the portal Emma leaves Lily in Snow's care and goes back to Storybrooke, because Killian's ship is still there and it's the only place in this world she can be close to him.

Cora appears next to her as she drives her father's truck down Main street, and Emma doesn't even blink an eye.

"Why are you here, silly girl? Didn't Regina tell you that there's nothing you can do to bring Hook back?"

"She did. It's not why I'm here", Emma says, turning the truck toward the docks. "Either do something to me or go."

"Very well, I'll go. But only because you were kind enough to let my daughter keep Henry."

"I just found a way for both of us to keep him", Emma tells her stiffly and then the witch is gone.

Even though she just came pretty close to dying, Emma feels calm, parking the car and taking the short walk to the docks. Her breath catches in her throat when she sees the Jolly Roger, gently rising and falling on the waves, and looking so utterly abandoned that she hesitates for a second, wondering if this is a bad idea, if she's just going to break herself more.

Since she doubts that's even possible, she climbs on and goes below deck, following the narrow corridors to the Captain's room, to what used to be Killian's room. Her hand trembles on the door knob and she closes her eyes, resting her forehead against the warm wood, wishing something magical could happen just one more time and help her find some comfort.

The cabin is smaller than she had expected, modestly furnished with a bunk bed, a table and a chair and a cupboard with various trinkets in it. She closes the door and almost shrieks because his pirate coat is hanging behind it and at first it seems like someone's standing there. She reaches out her hand and caresses the worn leather before she buries her face in the lining on the coat. It smells like sea and leather and Killian's smell assaults her even though it's impossible for it to still be stuck in it; her nose and brain are just playing tricks on her, but she doesn't really care.

The coat is too big on her but she puts it on anyway, walking across the cabin and sitting down in Killian's chair. She looks around and smiles for the first time in days because she can feel him here, she can almost see him as he was when he was still just a captain of a pirate ship, before everything bad that came with Rumplestiltskin.

There are three drawers in his heavy desk and Emma opens them all, looking through various maps in the first one and taking a fake hand out of the second one. She lays it on the table and covers its fingers with hers, finding more comfort in the touch of black leather on her skin than she ever imagined possible. The third drawer contains pencils and navigation instruments she doesn't know the names for, and she's just about to get up and cross to the cupboard when she spots a crumpled piece of paper stuck to the back of it, and her heart starts hammering even before she reaches for it and attempts to smooth it out.

_Dearest Emma_, she reads, and the world swims a little, a part of her wondering if maybe she'd gone insane and started seeing things.

"I'm just seeing what I want to see", she tells herself out loud and wipes at her eyes until her vision clears and she can start reading again.

_Dearest Emma, I wish I could find a way to tell you this in person, but something always interrupts us on those rare occasions that I manage to get you alone. _

Emma covers her mouth with her hand and reads the first and last love letter she had ever received, and because it's from the love of her life, also the most beautiful. She can't believe he never told her that he was in love with her even before the curse that brought them together, and she's so glad that he never gave her this letter back then because she knows she wouldn't have been able to appreciate it.

Now, it's like a divine blessing, like someone just beyond her reach telling her not to lose hope in him and in their love overcoming everything, even distance and time.

* * *

_One month later_

Emma sits on the edge of the tub in her bathroom and stares down at the home pregnancy test, willing it to be positive because she won't be able to take the disappointment of just randomly being late again instead of having Killian's baby growing inside her.

Two longest minutes of her life pass and the test turns blue, and suddenly she can't remember if that means that it's positive or not. She reads the instructions, then reads them again, and finally shoots out of the bathroom, colliding with Regina at the front door on her way upstairs to tell Snow that she's going to be a grandma again.

"Emma, what-"

"I'm pregnant", Emma shrieks, her cheeks almost hurting because her grin is so wide; she feels happier than she ever thought possible after losing Killian.

She doesn't stop to hear Regina's answer, racing up the stairs and coming in without knocking, walking through the apartment until she finds Snow in the living room playing with Lily. Snow had been taking care of Lily too often lately, and Emma vows that from now on things are going to change because her pain seems more bearable already, cushioned with the knowledge that soon she's going to hold a baby that's going to be half Killian.

It's the only thing except having him back that has the power of making her more or less whole again.

"Emma", Snow says, looking up in surprise at Emma's sudden appearance, and Lily gets up as quickly as she can and wraps her arms around Emma's legs.

"Mommy!"

Emma picks her up and twirls her around, then drops on the couch next to Snow with Lily in her lap and shows her the pregnancy test.

Snow's eyes grow wide and then she smiles, throwing her arms around her daughter, Lily squished between them.

"I'm so happy for you", Snow says, and Emma can't stop grinning, blowing raspberries against Lily's neck and making her giggle.

"I'm so happy you're not sad anymore, mommy", Lily says and presses a kiss against Emma's cheek.

"I keep expecting to wake up", Emma says, and Snow looks like she wants to say something, then changes her mind.

"What? You're not going to tell me that you're pregnant too or something freaky like that?" Emma says, and Snow gives her a smile and a pointed look, and then there's another round of hugs. "Why didn't you tell me before?"

"I wanted to, but your father thought we should wait a bit. You know, not to rub your nose in our happiness", Snow says softly, and Emma nods, realizing for the first time that Snow's shirt is pretty snug against her belly and feeling guilty for being so wrapped up in her own pain to notice.

"How far along are you?"

"Almost five months", she says, and Emma can't believe they've kept this from her for so long.

"You were already pregnant when you went after me?!"

"We didn't know I was. I was late but I chalked it up to stress and after two months it was pretty obvious it wasn't stress."

"Wow. I just realized that I'm getting a brother or a sister in four months, and then giving birth a few months later."

"It's a boy; Charming wants to name him Andrew, but I like Ethan more because it goes better with Emma."

"I'm sure he's going to let you have your way", Emma says, wishing Killian was here so they can discuss names even if he lets her choose in the end.

"Henry's going to get a half-brother or sister and an uncle within months, and both are going to be twelve years younger than him", Snow says to distract her from thinking about Killian and they start laughing, tears of mirth springing to their eyes, Lily looking from one to the other and then joining in even though she's not entirely sure what's going on.

That night Emma writes her first letter to Killian and puts it into a shoebox, knowing that no matter what, she's going to write another one every Sunday until he finds his way to her. She knows that chances are pretty slim of him coming back and reading about everything he'd missed while he was gone, but some hope is better than no hope at all, and she'd hate for him to come back in a few years and not being able tell him about something important about their child because she had forgotten about it.

"Hurry up Killian, you're going to be a daddy", she says softly, closing the box and putting it into her closet, rubbing her hand over her stomach absentmindedly. She doesn't care if she has to write a thousand letters as long as he returns someday so she can watch him read them, each letter like a testament of her love, an irrefutable proof that she had never stopped thinking about him.

* * *

_One year later_

Emma gives birth to Kaitlin Jones two days before Christmas and feels like a huge weight has been lifted, like she can finally stop holding her breath and expecting that something will go wrong at the last possible moment.

Kaitlin already has a lot of dark hair, and her eyes are so blue that Emma feels like she's staring at two miniature oceans, and seeing Killian looking back at her.

It's the best Christmas present anyone could receive and Emma presses a gentle kiss against her daughter's brow, wishing Killian could see this miracle they've created together.

"Your daddy doesn't even know you exist, but if he did, he'd love you so much", Emma coos to her baby, trying to figure out who Kaitlin resembles more before realizing with horror that she can't remember Killian's face anymore.

She hadn't cried since she found out she was pregnant, but she can't keep the tears from escaping when she closes her eyes and can't conjure Killian anymore, seeing only crude pictures from Henry's book in her mind's eye.

For the longest time she couldn't stop seeing him everywhere she went; among the stranger's faces in a crowd, in buses passing by her on the street or turning a corner ahead of her when she went for her checkups, and even though it hurt, it was also comforting because she felt less alone.

Kaitlin senses the change in her mood and starts crying even though she had just fed her, and Emma wipes her tears away quickly, gently rocking her and forcing herself to stop dwelling on the past and look forward to a bright future, smiling when Kaitlin yawns and goes back to sleep.

* * *

_Five years later_

Killian is nothing but a good night story to her children, and it would be sad if they weren't so attached to him despite barely remembering him, or, in Kaitlin's case, not remembering him at all.

Both of her girls never get tired of reading Henry's book, and sometimes when he's not being a moody teenager, Henry entertains them with stories about Storybrooke and makes Killian the main hero in all of them. Lily still calls him Killy even though she's already in second grade, and when Emma gets sad because she still misses him so much, Kaitlin notices and brings her the book, showing her the last chapter again even though they both know it by heart.

"Daddy will find a way to come back because he promised, and daddies always keep their promises", she tells her seriously every single time, and Emma finds comfort in her high childish voice, in her blue eyes and dark hair, all of it reminding her that even after five years the love that she feels for Killian is as strong as it ever was.

"You're right", Emma says, looking down at their picture in the book, hoping that wherever Killian is, he's alive and well, his love for her bringing him closer to home every day.

* * *

**Review?**


	24. The Miracle

**I can't believe there was no Hook last night... I hope this chapter makes you all feel a little bit better because I'm so happy and honored that you went on this journey with me, and trusted me with your feels. Thank you so much for reading. The Epilogue and the playlist will be up tomorrow, and by then I'll find a coherent way to express my plans for the next CS fic.  
**

* * *

Emma drops Lily and Kaitlin off and drives to her office, making a mental list of all the shopping she needs to do before she picks them up after school.

She spends the day buried in work, surfacing only to eat a sandwich for lunch, calling Henry to check if he got the money she had wired him yesterday. It's amazing how fast time passes; sometimes she can't believe that her little boy is already in college, all grown up.

"I got the money mom, from both you and Regina", he tells her, and Emma rolls her eyes good-naturedly because she knows that had Henry been talking to Regina, he would've called Regina mom and Emma by her name.

"Good to know. Don't come to either of us for money for at least a week, okay?" She says and he laughs, making Emma smile and wish she could see him every day instead of every other weekend.

"See you soon", he says and Emma goes back to work.

Her little agency for finding lost people is doing quite well, and it's a perfect fit that allows her to make her own hours and do what she's always been doing. This case she's working on is particularly tricky, and she's so focused on her paperwork that she doesn't even notice that someone had entered the office until a shadow falls across her desk.

"Sorry, I -", she starts to say and finally looks up, and then the world just stops turning. Her hands fly to her mouth and she gets up from her chair slowly, like she's a hundred years old, walking around her desk and outstretching her hand until it encounters _his _chest. "Killian."

His name falls from her lips as her fingers fist in the material of his shirt, her other hand cupping his face.

"Hello, love", he says, and she smiles even though her eyes are rapidly filling with tears. She had dreamt him back so many times in the past seven years, but the reality is infinitely better. "I told you I would find a way."

Emma shakes her head because she can't find the words to tell him how this feels, she can only stand there and stare at him, still gripping his shirt tightly because she's afraid that he's going to disappear if she lets go.

He looks older and thinner, his hair is streaked with grey, but she can honestly say that she had never seen anybody more beautiful than him.

"Say something", he says softly, wiping away her tears with his knuckles like he did on their last night together, and Emma finally manages to swallow the lump in her throat.

"I missed you so much."

"I missed you too, lass", he says, and slowly lowers his head until their lips meet for the first time after two thousand six hundred and eleven days of being apart.

Emma kisses him hungrily, pressing her whole body against his, and he picks her up and carries her to the couch in the corner of her office, sitting down with her straddling his lap. The front door isn't locked, but she doesn't care; she's pretty sure nothing in this world could make her stop kissing him, stop touching him and feeling his fingers travel over her back, rising goose bumps in their path.

Her hands caress his stomach under his shirt and go around him, counting new scars marring his skin, reminding her once again that he was stuck with the zombies all alone while she cried her eyes out in the comfort of her room, her children sleeping just down the hall from her. And yet, she still thinks that she had it worse, because all she could do was wait and hope and pray for him to come back to her.

"How did you-?" She starts to ask, but he shuts her up with another kiss and she stops thinking, focusing only on how good this feels after she'd been starving for him for years.

Emma shrugs out of her blouse and her bra and takes off first his hook then his jacket, wrestling with his shirt for a moment before she can finally press herself against his chest, a small sigh escaping her because everything that's been forgotten is coming back and she can't wait to feel him inside her again.

Maybe it's because it's been such a long time and they are both so desperate, but they don't even think about taking it slow, the very presence of the other in their personal orbit enough to make them shatter into a million pieces within five minutes of first contact.

She finally understand what "journeys end in lovers meeting" really means, thinking that she'd be completely fine if she never left his lap again, and judging by the way he's clinging to her, he feels exactly the same.

"I have to tell you something", Emma says when their breathing returns to normal, caressing Killian's cheek with her knuckles, unable to look away from his eyes, feeling like the world has finally been set right after being just a little out of place since she came back through the portal. A shadow passes over Killian's face and she realizes that she's scaring him, so she smiles, shaking her head. "It's wonderful and sad at the same time."

Emma turns around and reaches toward her desk, taking the photograph from the corner of it and holding it out to him. His eyes take in the three kids in the picture, going from Henry to Lily and finally to Kaitlin, and for a long while he just stares.

"Emma…" He starts to say, his voice breaking, then clears his throat and tries again. "Is that our daughter?"

"Her name is Kaitlin, and she's six", Emma answers him gently, feeling a stab of pain at the thought that he missed so many precious moments, but she ignores it because he's here now and they will have their happily ever after. Besides, those three hundred thirty-five letters she had written are finally going to be read.

"All this time I've been thinking only of you and Lily", he says dazedly, raising his eyes to hers, and Emma gets up from his lap and haphazardly puts her clothes back on.

"Let's go."

"Go where?" He asks her, his hand shaking as he tries to button his shirt so Emma does it for him, pressing a kiss along the line of his jaw when she's done and pulling him toward the door.

"They made me promise to pull them out of school the second you came back", Emma says sheepishly, glancing at him over her shoulder.

"That was one long second", he says grinning at her and her heart is hammering in her heart with glee.

Emma locks the door behind her and turns toward the street, stopping dead in her tracks when she sees their Pontiac parked along the curb, parking ticket sticking out from under the wiper already.

"You came back in our car?" She asks, lovingly running her hand over the dusty hood.

"I couldn't leave it behind after everything we've been through together", he says and opens the door for her, and she promptly steps around him.

"I'm driving", she announces and gets into the driver's seat, feeling like she'd just traveled through time, and finding that nothing's changed.

He gets in and hands her the keys, and as she drives toward the school the years are melting away until it seems that he'd always been with her.

* * *

Emma barges first into Lily's classroom and then into Kaitlin's and both of them simply know what's going on within seconds of seeing her.

"He's really here?" Kaitlin asks for the fifth time as they walk down empty corridors toward the main entrance into the school and Emma tells her that he is yet again.

"Did he ask about me?" Lily asks uncertainly, and Emma hugs her skinny shoulders and pulls her close before speaking.

"He did. And he can't wait to see both of you."

Killian is still in the parking lot where she left him, leaning against the car with his arms crossed in front of his chest, and Emma notices right away that the hook is nowhere in sight. She thinks it's probably for the best because Lily and Kaitlin walk calmly on either side of her for exactly two and a half seconds after they spot him before taking off at a run. They reach him at the same time and Killian gets down on one knee, his arms pulling them close.

Emma realizes she's crying again, and quickly dabs at her eyes as she walks toward them, finally understanding the mechanics of happy tears.

Killian pulls away but keeps his arms around his girls, his eyes lingering lovingly on Lily who grins and leans against him like no time has passed at all. He kisses her cheek and then turns to Kaitlin, who suddenly looks shy, staring down at her feet. "Look at me, darling."

Kaitlin looks up and smiles, and when their identical blue eyes lock together, something like a magical connection passes between them, visible from a mile away.

"Do you still have my elephant?" Lily asks, bringing Killian's attention back to her and he brushes hair away from her eyes and stands up, rummaging in the back seat of the car for a moment before handing her the toy she had given him when she was three.

"I think I kept pretty good care of him", Killian tells her and Lily hugs the elephant to her chest with one arm and embraces him with the other.

"I'm glad you took care of yourself and kept your promise to mom", she says and Kaitlin nods enthusiastically.

"Me too", she says, pressing her face against his side and embracing both him and Lily. He looks at Emma over their heads and motions for her to come closer so he can hold her too, and she realizes that whatever he's been through just got erased because of two little girls who love him more than all the stuffed animals in the world.

Emma comes closer and smiles because his love is like the ocean in his eyes, deep, unfathomable and never ending, wrapping around all three of them just like his arms.

* * *

It's not until they've tucked their girls into bed and read them their favorite chapters from Henry's book that he finally tells her how the story ended for him, and what it took to get back to her.

Emma lies in the circle of his arms and listens to him talk about travelling for a couple of years before rescuing an old woman from zombies. She turned out to be a witch, but the residual magic left from the portal wasn't strong enough to help her send him back, so she sent him to Neverland instead, giving him the best chance she could.

"How long has it been for you?" Emma asks, sitting up to see him better and dreading the answer because she knows that time passes differently in Neverland. She's scared that too much time has passed and that both of them changed in ways that would stop them from just picking this up where they left it off.

"Felt like a hundred years", he says, reaching up and brushing his fingers through Emma's hair, and when he smiles, it's like the sun coming out in the middle of the night and chasing away all the shadows and doubts. "Now that I can look upon you again, I think it wasn't more than a few days."

"I love you", Emma says, and he pulls her down so close that their noses are almost touching, looking at her like a blind man finally seeing all the wonders of the world.

"I love you more, my darling princess", he tells her and kisses her, telling her everything he needs her to know with the touch of his lips and tongue and teeth.

They make love until they are too tired to move, but they don't go to sleep because they are both afraid of waking up alone.

Emma hands him the box with her letters and sits against the headboard with his head against her thigh, sifting her fingers through his hair and watching him read about the weeks and years he'd missed, answering countless questions and kissing him again and again and again.

It occurs to her that they went through Hell together, through Purgatory apart, and now that they are finally together, she comes to the conclusion that Heaven can't be much better than this.

* * *

**Review?**


	25. Epilogue

**So, here we are at the end of yet another fic. Thank you again for your support, and I hope you join me in a couple of weeks when I start posting the one I'm developing now. It's going to be a no magic AU called "Stay With Me"; I got the idea from "Me Before You" by Jojo Moyes, so if you've already read that book don't panic because Killian isn't Will and SWM will have a happy ending... There's going to be a lot of angst before that, but I guess you're used to it by now. Anway, enjoy these two beautiful idiots and keep shipping them no matter what because they are **timeless**. P.S. You can find the playlist for this fic at ** **my tumblr (link in my profile) under the tag **fanmix**.  
**

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Killian Jones finally marries Emma Swan nine years after he had first laid eyes on her in the Enchanted Forest. He still remembers every detail of that day, and even though it was supposed to be a ruse to find out about Storybrooke for Cora, he can't help thinking that she had saved him that day, in all the ways that matter.

Charming leads his daughter down the aisle and Killian wonders how is it possible that she seems to get more beautiful every day, wishing for the millionth time that he could've found a way to get to her quicker than he did and spared her all the pain she went through without him.

Emma reaches him and grasps his hand, their fingers tangling together in a perfectly synchronized move they never practiced but still always perform without hesitation. He barely listens to the priest droning on, unable to take his eyes off his bride because she seems to be glowing from the inside, and he realizes that he doesn't care if the baby she's carrying is a boy or a girl as long as he gets to be here for every day of his or hers life.

As if reading his thoughts, Emma glances over her shoulder and he follows her gaze to the first row of the pews where their family sits, Snow leaning against Charming, holding Ethan and trying to make Kaitlin stay where she is with her free hand, Lily catching Killian's eye and winking, and Henry trying to remain cool, but still unable to keep a wide grin from stretching his lips.

Other used-to-be residents of Storybrooke fill the rest of the little church, and the only ones missing are Gold and Belle, but Killian is glad for that because no matter how much time passes, if they were in the same room, he'd still feel that primal need to skin his crocodile. He can't quite believe that Cora has left Storybrooke and momentarily sacrificed her magic just to attend the wedding even though nobody had invited her; Regina sits next to her in a pew behind Henry, looking utterly embarrassed because Cora is wiping away tears with a handkerchief, her shoulders shaking with silent sobs.

In a way, Cora's the one that brought him and Emma together, and when Emma's eyes meet his they share a look of understanding before they turn back to face the altar, Emma's head resting against his shoulder.

"The rings, please", the priest says and Grumpy and Red make haste to offer them, and Emma slides his ring on his right hand and he slides hers on her left, both of them unconsciously leaning toward each other even before the priest announces that they can kiss.

They exit the church under a shower of rice that catches in the waves of Emma's hair and he helps her gather her dress and get into the passenger seat of their Pontiac before going around and getting behind the wheel. Emma leans out the window and throws her bouquet toward the crowd, and it lands right into Regina's hands, making Killian chuckle because it seems that Cora might be crying again.

"Let's go, sailor", Emma says and bites his earlobe playfully, raising the hem of her dress until he can see her blue garter.

It's all the incentive he needs to start the car and they head toward the ocean, where the Jolly Roger awaits to take them on their honeymoon and beyond that, to a lifetime of making love.

* * *

Emma wakes up early, for a horrible second thinking that last year has been nothing but a beautiful dream, and it's only when she sees Killian's sleeping form that she feels she can breathe again.

Slowly, she turns on her side and just watches him sleep for a while, still marveling at how happy life can be when you have the one you love by your side and don't have to worry about anything taking him from you. She's certain that they've had their share of hurt, and that from now on, it's only going to be smooth sailing.

Emma presses her lips against the scar on his cheek and slides out from under his arm, padding silently to the kitchen. She starts the coffee and opens the window to let the sunlight in, and just like clockwork, Liam starts crying.

The nursery is painted pale blue with miniature constellations of stars covering the ceiling, each one lovingly drawn by Killian's hand, and every time she sees it, Emma feels her heart do a somersault in her chest. She crosses to the crib, her toes sinking into the thick carpet along the way, and as soon as she picks up her little boy he stops crying and looks at her like he's surprised that she's already there.

"Morning, love", Killian says from behind her and she turns, smiling at the way his hair sticks up on one side of his head, feeling like she's never going to get tired of looking at him and hearing his voice and loving him with every ounce of her being.

"Morning. Can you say "good morning", Liam? Can you?" Emma coos to the baby and Killian chuckles, coming closer and looking at their son over her shoulder, his cheek resting against hers.

"I think it's too early for that", he says, and they both laugh like it's the funniest joke in the world. "Feel free to prove me wrong, laddie", he adds and tickles Liam who giggles loudly, grasping Killian's finger with his tiny hand.

Emma turns around and kisses her husband, their son still giggling between them, and when they finally come up for air Killian's looking at her with such love and devotion that she can hardly believe life can be this good, that just being near with him can make her feel so complete. Her eyes are getting misty so she kisses him again to distract herself, sighing with content when his arm wraps around her waist and pulls her closer, their hips firmly pressed together.

"I want pancakes- that's gross", Kaitlin says from the door and makes gagging noises as she crosses the room and then pulls at Killian's hand until he lets go of Emma. As she watches Kaitlin dragging him to the kitchen, Lily joining them outside Liam's room, Emma can't help but marvel at how alike the three of them are, and how easily Killian fit into their life after they were without him for such a long time.

Liam pulls at her hair and she shakes herself out of her reverie and goes to sit down in the rocking chair, breastfeeding him and listening to the sounds drifting from the kitchen, to Lily laughing and Kaitlin saying "not like _that_" and Killian telling them one of his pirate stories yet again.

She thinks about her youth and how she had never imagined this life, still a little surprised that she feels so right living it, and even though reaching happiness may have taken a long time, now that she's got everything she'd ever need, she thinks that all the pain was definitely worth it.

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